DethCrush
by Varia Lectio
Summary: Sequel to "DethDearest." Nathan attempts to continue his romance with Angélique, but Murderface is afraid of what their relationship might do to the band. Meanwhile, Rebecca comes out of her coma and schemes to destroy both Nathan and Dethklok forever...
1. Coming To

_**DethCrush **_

Rated R (M) for language, adult situations, drug use, violence, and a vengeful Rebecca.

**Summary:** Sequel to "DethDearest." Nathan clumsily attempts to continue his romance with Angélique, but Murderface is afraid of what the budding relationship might do to the band. Meanwhile, Rebecca comes out of her coma and hatches a scheme to punish her ex and bring down Dethklok forever...

**Author's Notes:** Here's the cream filling for the Oreo sandwich cookie that is "DethDearest", "DethCrush", and "Our Town".

_**Chapter One: Coming To**_

Murderface was worried, and that was something that really killed the mood.

It was Groupie Night at Mordhaus -- a night where they invited several groupies who lived in the clusters of pre-fabricated villages around the Mordland property to come to the 'haus and party all night with Dethklok. So far, the event had gone quite well. Nathan had gone off to his room with some blonde chick with a cute ass, Pickles had his arms around two girls, Toki had a rather dorky-looking groupie with glasses, and Skwisgaar had taken not one, not two, but _three_ large, middle-aged women back to his Spartan apartments.

And that left Murderface, who had a girl, of course. He wouldn't be caught dead on Groupie Night _without_ one. But, just like everything else in his life, he was left with the second-best, the cold week-old leftovers at the back of the fridge. The girl he was with wasn't the prettiest. She didn't have the nicest tits or the cutest ass. And she wasn't all that happy about being picked by Murderface, either.

Even if he hadn't been deathly worried, Murderface wouldn't really have been in the mood. Add in the worry, and the thought of having sex moved from the realm of "grotesquely embarrassing humiliation" and into the horrifying land of "total physical and psychological impossibility".

Sitting on the bed, arms crossed over her corseted bosom, the groupie thrust out her lower lips and tapped her foot impatiently. "Well? Are we gonna do anything?" Her face was corpse-white with makeup, her lips and eyelids painted in dramatic colors of black and red that only served to remind Murderface of Dr. Rockso, which, if possible, further depressed his mood.

He snarled, then muttered, "I... guessch..."

"Not!" the groupie snapped, hoisting herself up off his bed with a gusting sigh. She rolled her eyes at him on the way out and slammed the door behind her.

Murderface sat down on his bed where the girl had been. Her butt and thighs had warmed the covers a bit. Even that didn't comfort him.

He listened to the sound of her high-heeled shoes clicking away down the hall, and thought blackly of Nathan. _You bastard. You cocky, dickhead, self-centered bastard. This is all your fault._

_( / )_

_( / )_

_( / )_

Murderface would have undoubtedly been much happier (in a typically bleak and cynical sort of way) if he had known that Nathan himself was also very unhappy.

"Nathaaaaaan?" The groupie's perfumed fingers teased at his hair. "What's wroooong?"

The high-pitched wheedling tone of her voice was driving him crazy, and not in a good way. Ordinarily he could put up with women who had annoying voices if they kept their mouths shut and weren't screamers, but this girl's voice was just killing the mood for him.

He gnawed on his lower lip. Or was it something else that was bothering him? He wasn't sure, and it was maddening.

"I, uh..." he replied, looking back at her, into her blue eyes that now were reminding him so much of Rebecca. Now that he looked at her, the rest of her was starting to remind him of Rebecca, too; her upturned nose, full cheeks, luscious but slightly pouty mouth. . . .

Totally unaware of what was bothering him, she grinned, trying to save the moment. "You want me to suck your hawg?"

"Ummm, I guess..."

"_SOOUUUEEEEEE_!" she yelped in an ear-splittingly high voice, and dove down on him, her fingers tearing at his pants with such ferocity that it frightened him.

"Hey, hey, wait!" he said, pulling her off him before she could tear her way through the denim to his skin, "don't you think we should... I dunno... go a little, um, slower?"

"Slow?" Was it just him, or did her smile have a mocking edge to it? "I thought you liked things fast." Her sharp-nailed fingers pinched at one of his nipples, and he hissed in pain. "And rough..." The nails dug in deeper.

"Owww!" he bellowed, and shoved her off of him. The groupie yelped in shock and tumbled unceremoniously to the floor, landing hard in a flurry of bleached-blonde hair and jiggling breasts.

She stared up at him, hurt and confused. "Nathan... what did I--"

"Just -- just go. Please. I'm not in the mood. I'm sorry." He got up and helped her up. She was crying. "I'm not -- you're great. And sexy. Really. I'm just not... in the mood tonight. Maybe I have diarrhea or a migraine or dick cancer. Something, I dunno. Sorry."

But she had turned her back on him and any lame-ass excuses he could possibly offer, and was out the door before he could finish even saying "Sorry". He sighed and sat back down and shut his mouth with a snap.

The feelings of frustration that had been simmering at a slow boil in him all day suddenly exploded, and he lunged up, ran for the opposite wall, and punched it until the knuckles of his right hand were reduced to raw, bloody mush and his whole arm was throbbing with pain up to the elbow. His hand refused to work properly, and several of the fingers felt numb. _Gotta go see the doctor tomorrow._

For now, sated with the pain but still feeling hollow inside, he sat back down, nursing the throbbing agony of broken bones and torn flesh like it was a particularly stiff and bitter drink. He savored it, not because he particularly enjoyed it, but because it was all he had at the moment, and having it was better than having nothing. Sometimes pain could serve as an emotional release -- he'd learned that playing football in high school, and he'd re-learned it after meeting Murderface and seeing just how incredibly self-destructive _he_ could be.

_That was seriously fuckin' embarrassing._ He didn't know what was wrong with him. She'd been cute enough -- had a nice figure, a decent face, and had certainly been willing enough. It was just that he'd stared at her and somehow seen Rebecca in her. Just the thought that that comatose bitch could haunt his one-night-stands was enough to make him want to walk up to Saint En's and dump her out of her hospital bed.

Still confused and angry, he rolled over onto his bed and curled up, resting his abused arm straight across a pillow in front of him. A wave of tiredness washed over him, making his muscles relax and his eyes feel sore and heavy. He shut his eyes, concentrating on the warm blackness pulsing behind his closed lids. He listened to the soft growling sound of his own breathing for a while, letting it calm him...

_Saint En's. The lights were too bright and they hurt his eyes, making them water. The air was cool and smelled sharply of chemical cleaners and antiseptic soap solutions. _

_Rebecca. He was in her hospital room, staring down at her with the suddenness that these sorts of things take in dreams. Her mouth was agape, revealing broken and stained teeth. He remembered her, either smiling or screaming, and recalled perfectly even, straight, white teeth. _

_Her sallow face was cratered with scars and dents and unsightly lumps where her cheekbones and jaw had been broken, where her skin had been shredded and torn. The only thing about her that looked like the woman he had once lived in mortal terror and hatred of was her long blonde hair. He tucked a stray strand behind her ear and then bent down to pick her up and throw her out. She needed to go; he needed to be free of her..._

_But then she struggled in his grasp and let out one long, harsh exhalation. Monitors started to shrill an alarm and her body flexed like a fish on a hook, thrashing with a strength that both surprised and horrified him. _

_He dropped her writhing form down into her bed, and she flailed and thrashed and then looked up at him, blue eyes burning with a hate that made him skitter backwards with his heart in his mouth. _

_Rebecca's upper torso jerked upright as she sat up, head lolling about on her neck as if her bones were broken. Her mouth stretched impossibly wide, teeth lengthening into jagged black fangs, her lips sliding back across gums mottled with rot. And she screamed so loudly that blood burst from his ears..._

And that was when he woke up, panting, shivering, and drenched in sweat. His bad arm throbbed with a dull pulse of agony. The sheets beneath him were soaked and cold.

Heaving out a sigh, he pulled himself off the sodden bed, peeled off his jeans and underwear (with one hand, which was quite frustratingly difficult), and waddled into the bathroom for a hot shower to get the stink of his own terrified sweat off. Unfortunately, the shower also served to wake his mind up even more, making him remember the nightmare in ever more awful clarity. He knew he wasn't going to be getting any more sleep tonight.

So when he got out of the shower, he awkwardly pulled on some pajama pants and padded down to their small, informal kitchen/breakfast room, wet hair hanging in lank tangles across his back and shoulders.

The lights were off, except for the light from the fridge. Which was open. Which was open because someone was down on their knees rooting around in it like a pig in mud. Nathan stared at the wiggling white-clad ass for a moment before the other man straightened up and turned around.

"Hey, Murderface," he grunted in a tired but still amiable tone. He slumped down at the breakfast table, the chair creaking under his weight.

Murderface gave him a gimlet glare. "Dickhead." He shot Nathan the finger before using the offending digit to snap open a beer-can's pop-top.

"What the hell's _your_ problem, dogbreath?" Nathan snarled, resting his elbows on the table with a thump, and wincing as the shock traveled up his bad arm.

Murderface sniffed derisively. "Oh, nothin'. Did you get tired of porking your groupie?"

Normally, the sound of Nathan flexing his fingers and cracking his sizable knuckles would make any other member of the band sit up and pay close attention to whatever the fuck Nathan might have to say, but Murderface didn't seem fazed. That might have been because Nathan was only doing it with one hand, but Murderface's display of nonchalance only made Nathan angrier. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean, _William_?"

Nathan's passable imitation of Stella Murderface's pronunciation of her grandson's first name made Murderface grimace, then snarl. "Sscho, how long did you lascht with that groupie, Nathan?" he said quietly, tone full of deadly poison. "Schee had some really nice knockers. Cute assch, too." He leaned forward and leered. "Wasch it five minutes? Or ten? Or did you not even get to schtick it in before you--"

Nathan's answering punch (with his good arm, fortunately) snapped Murderface's jaws together with a sound like a rat trap being sprung, and slammed the bassist back into the fridge. The fridge rattled and shivered as Murderface slumped down its length with a squeal of sweaty, flabby flesh. With his legs splayed out in a growing puddle of beer (he had dropped the can when Nathan popped him), he stared up at Nathan through a mask of blood.

Nathan leaned down, planting his knee in the pit of Murderface's stomach. "What the _fuck_ is your problem, Murderface? I come down here to think and maybe get totally shit-faced drunk, and you give me shit about... about... well, how the fuck am I supposed to know? Huh?"

Murderface spat blood at him and then turned his face away, breathing hard like a trapped animal.

"Well? _Huh?_ I can sit on you all night, William."

The threat broke him. Murderface let out a strangled sound that was halfway between a gasp for air and a sob (it might have in fact been both) and shrieked miserably, "Fuck you, Nate! I was so fuckin' worried! About _you_!" He threw his arms around Nathan and trembled.

Amazed, Nathan nearly slipped and put his whole weight on Murderface's soft middle, but saved himself (and his bass player) in time and managed to let his leg slide off to the side, which wasn't all that hard because he was still pretty wet from the shower and Murderface's pudgy belly was all sweaty. He ended up straddling Murderface, his head leaning down until their noses were almost touching. Nathan was suddenly very glad that there was no one else in the room besides them.

It reminded Nathan of when they had both been teenagers together; unemployed and unemployable, living together in a run-down flophouse apartment because neither Murderface's grandparents or Nathan's parents would let the two of them stay at their respective houses. Murderface had possessed the pittance of a high school graduation diploma, but no social skills to get even a minimum-wage job; Nathan didn't even have a diploma. In desperation, the two had pooled together their meager resources (which amounted to a fairly shallow puddle) and started playing together as a band. A band of two, which wasn't much, but then they'd found a drummer (not Pickles, however; the kid they'd had then had been far less talented) and things had headed off from there.

In short, it reminded Nathan that whatever else Murderface was -- messy, disgusting, self-pitying, sadomasochistic, anxious, filled with fear and rage -- he was trustworthy, and his instincts about a given situation were, amazingly enough, usually better than Nathan's. If he said something and sounded sincere enough about it, Nathan was willing to listen.

So he decided to shove aside his anger and, for the moment, listen. He gave the snuffling Murderface a friendly shake. "Hey, dogface," he mumbled, his voice quiet and devoid of rancor, "what's up, huh?" He ruffled Murderface's hair.

"I juscht... y'know..." Murderface's nose was dripping thick greenish-yellow snot. He gave a long, gluey snuffle. "I'm worried about ya, Nate. That new bitch you brought back..."

"Huh?" Nathan's brain had to work that confession over for a minute before he realized that Murderface wasn't talking about the Groupie Night girl. "Do you mean Angélique?"

"Yeah, her. That girl who was always schobbing about shome crap or another..."

"Well, she's not a bitch, you S.O.B." Nathan was getting angry again.

"I -- okay, Nate, I'm schure the schun schines out of her asschhole, I meant--" Murderface stopped talking as Nathan's huge body started to tremble like a volcano about to explode. "What the hell?"

"You--" Nathan leaned forward and let his forehead thump against the cold surface of the fridge. "That's --_ hahah_ -- say that again, Murder -- _hahah -- _face. . . ." He broke down into an entirely unbrutal spate of giggling and snickering.

"Oh, get _off_ me, you dick," Murderface snarled, and punched Nathan hard enough in the balls to cause him to groan and go limp, making it easy for Murderface to push him aside and escape.

"Murderface? What?" Nathan felt genuinely hurt, and in a place other than his balls and his arm. It felt like Murderface had just kneed him in his soul. Yeah. That's what it felt like. Like the 'nads of his soul had been given a good, hard punch. "It's just the way you said it, it sounded funny. . . ." Belatedly, he realized he'd offended Murderface, but it would feel too weird to apologize about it.

"Oh, schut up. Thanks, Nate, I'm not worried about you anymore. _Any. More._" With that, Murderface swung around, his belly and rump jiggling with the suddenness of the motion, and stormed out.

Nathan slowly pushed himself to his feet but crashed back down onto his ass as his bare heel made contact with Murderface's spilled beer. The impact jogged his aching right arm into a fresh blaze of agony, and forced him to sit there in a puddle of tepid beer, cursing out Murderface in various creative ways using all of the English curses he knew and a few of the French, Norwegian, and Swedish words he'd picked up from Jean-Pierre, Toki, and Skwisgaar over the years. He had a lot of time to sit there, so it was easy for him to remember such a vast vocabulary of imprecatory foulness.

Toki found him in the morning when the younger man came down for his customary bowl of sugary breakfast cereal. "Nathans?" he asked, staring at Nathan with open concern in his grey-blue eyes. "Yous okays?" He tip-toed around Nathan's half-naked bulk to get to the store of breakfast cereal and milk, and poured himself a bowl of Fruity-Berry Baphomets, with marshmallow goat heads and stars.

"No," Nathan mumbled, his voice even hoarser than usual. "I feel like shit."

"Yeah, you looks like it, too." Toki plopped down in, ironically, the same chair Murderface had sat in some hours ago, and slurped up a heaping spoonful of colorful satanic cereal. "You look like yous could uses some cheers." He dipped down into his bowl and held out a spoonful of cereal. "Wants some? It's my new endorsements deal."

"What the hell, I'll have some." Nathan stuck out his tongue and opened his mouth, and Toki tipped the spoon up and plopped the cereal and milk in. He chewed and swallowed thoughtfully. "Not bad."

"Yeah, it's happy stuff, but happy in a metals sorts of way, _ja?_" Toki spun the box around so Nathan could see the cartoon Baphomet grinning on the front. In the hand that would have held its customary torch, it held a spoon laden with its own cereal; in the other, it held a bowl full of the same. Emblazoned up at the top, it said, _"Endorsed by Toki Wartooth"_, and had a picture of Toki.

Toki turned the cereal box around so he could do the little crossword puzzle on the back, and doodled with a pen whilst eating his breakfast. Nathan had thought that the younger man had actually forgotten he was there (Toki could, if the mood struck him, get so wrapped up in something that he forgot where he was or if there was anyone else in a room or place with him), but this notion was quickly dispelled when Toki said, after swallowing his last bite of cereal, "Nathans, what happened to yours arm?"

"My arm?" For a moment he thought about lying, then thought better of it. "I, uh, I got really, really pissed-off about something, Toki, and I, uh... I took it out on myself." He forced a grin. "Doesn't feel too good, right now."

Toki dropped his spoon into his milk. "Why, Nathans?!"

He sounded horrified, and Nathan wondered why until he connected it with Toki's background. Of course the thought of anyone _deliberately_ harming themselves would freak him out. _Nathan, you fuckin' dumbass._

"Toki, calm down... I was just having a bad night, that's all." He forced another grin. "How was yours?"

Toki brightened. "Oh, it was so much funs, Nathan!" His youthful face took on a starry-eyed look that Nathan most commonly associated with teenage girls. "We stayed up late together, and we laughed so much, and watched movies, and we played Twister and DDR -- way past her bedtimes! -- and we ate candies 'till we couldn't eat no more!" He tipped his chair back. "Wowee!"

"So, did you..."

Toki shook his head, but did not look particularly disappointed. "Naaw, she ate too many candies and had a tummy-ache. Plus, she's a virgin, so she a bit frightened. So we just kissed and cuddled." He grinned. "It was fun, Nathans! Yous should tries it!"

"Yeah." Nathan pushed himself up off the floor with one hand, groaned, and slung his aching body into a seat opposite Toki. He stretched out his wounded arm with a grimace, and rested his chin in his good hand, momentarily distracted by the consideration of snuggling with a sexual partner. Usually Nathan had never the time, inclination, or energy to snuggle or cuddle or talk after sex; he generally just liked closing his eyes and going to sleep. He reconsidered this behavior. "Isn't... isn't that what women generally like?"

He hadn't really realized he'd spoken aloud until Toki said, in a rather shocked tone, "Whats, Nathans?"

He turned. _You've stepped in some deep shit now, idiot. I guess Rebecca was right all along._ Aloud, he said, "Y'know, cuddling. I said, I think they like that."

Toki looked flustered, and puffed out his mustachios. "I... I guess. I just ask, like 'What do you want to do, pretty girl, now that your tummy hurts with candies?' She says give me a tummy rub or something, then I dos it, y'know?"

"That's a good... that's good, Toki." _Toki Wartooth, who might as well have 'Virgin' as his middle fuckin' name, is better at getting chicks to like him than I am! No wonder I ended up with Rebecca..._

From the hall there came the sounds of clamor and chatter as the other members of Dethklok finally arose and came down for breakfast. Pickles slogged in, head thrust forward on a sagging neck and slumping shoulders. Then Skwisgaar, smiling and bleary-eyed. Then Murderface, who was sporting a bruised nose and jaw and was most assuredly _not_ smiling. Nathan tried to catch Murderface's eyes, but the latter pointedly ignored him.

They all slumped down at the table after making themselves cups of juice, milk, or coffee (Pickles, of course, spiking his morning orange juice with a little vodka). There was silence for a while, then Pickles finally said, with a grin so wide and smug that Nathan wanted to punch him, "So, who got to be in a sandwich last night?"

Skwisgaar's hand shot up. So did Pickles'. Toki looked bemused; Nathan and Murderface just looked pissed.

"Toki!" Pickles yelled merrily, "didn't you get it on with that cute girl of yours? And Nate, your girl was _smokin_' hot! Don't tell me you have blue balls t'day! Not after her!" His boozy smile slowly faded as he studied Nathan a little more carefully. "Nathan," he said slowly, "what the fuck happened to your arm? It looks like you ran it through a meat grinder!"

"Oh, he's just hurtings himself," Toki said, getting up to get another bowl of cereal.

"And he _doesch_ have blue ballsch t'day, Picklesch," Murderface chimed, neatly slipping through the door that Toki had so innocently left open. Above his broken nose, his pale green eyes glittered maliciously. "I'll bet he couldn't even get it up lascht night with that bitch."

Nathan's heart was steadily ascending into his throat. This was getting out of hand. "Murderface," he said very softly, "you want to be getting out of here before I put your ugly face through that table."

Murderface crowed, spit spraying across the table. Skwisgaar and Pickles yelled and held up their hands, but Murderface didn't care. "With what, Nate? One hand?" He held up his own, fists clenched. "Come on, then, try me."

Pickles stood up, hands held up, palms open in a conciliatory gesture. "Oh, c'mon, guys, it's too early in the morning for this shit. Come on, Nathan, Murderface, let's settle down and--"

"Schut the fuck up, Picklesch," Murderface spat. "Before I put your face through your drum kit and try to beat out the drums for _Murmaider_ on your fuckin' schalp." His tone was so vicious that Pickles gave up trying to be the band peacemaker, and like Toki and Skwisgaar, stepped back.

"You want it, I'll give it to you, fuckface," Nathan spat, giving Murderface the middle finger with his good hand and tucking his bad arm behind his back.

That turned out to be a very bad move, as Murderface lunged over the table faster than Nathan would have believed possible, and grabbed Nathan's middle finger in an iron grip. Nathan, panicking, tried to pull away, and Murderface wrenched with all his strength. There was a surprisingly loud and very unpleasant snapping sound, followed quickly by Nathan's howl of pain.

Murderface crowed and whipped out his knife, yelling, "You want more, fucker? Huh, huh?" and Pickles was yelling into his Dethphone for Ofdensen to get down here, now, on the fuckin' double because Murderface was going crazy and trying to kill Nathan, and Toki was just screaming and trying to hug Skwisgaar.

Ironically, it was Skwisgaar who saved Nathan from being spitted on Murderface's wickedly curved Bowie knife. Yelling an obscure war cry in his native tongue, the Swede stepped up behind Murderface and clubbed him over the head with his Gibson X-Plorer. The guitar strings snapped simultaneously, the guitar split down the middle, and Murderface dropped like a rock. Skwisgaar put his foot on Murderface's back triumphantly, then thought better of it and took his foot away and stepped back just as Ofdensen rushed in, taser gun in hand, at the head of a four-man squad of Klokateers who likewise were holding stun guns, electric prods, and tasers.

Ofdensen stopped and surveyed the carnage, a slight sneer of distaste wrinkling his lips. "What the hell happened here?" he snapped, holstering the gun.

"Murderface was acting like a crazy-ass douchebag," Pickles supplied.

Ofdensen nodded, his sharp eyes turning to Nathan. "And you?"

"Why the fuck is everyone blaming me for every fuckin' thing!" Nathan yelled. He slumped down into his chair again, and covered his face with his aching hands. "Just go away. All of you."

"Not until you go to the hospital." Ofdensen's voice was as sharp as his eyes. "Nathan, what happened to--"

"JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT!"

"Okay, Nathan." Ofdensen was making a effort to soften his voice. "But you need to go to the infirmary. Now."

Nathan accepted Ofdensen's help in getting up. "Okay. Okay." As he was turning to go, he suddenly looked back. "Is -- is _she_ there?" Memories of his nightmare came slithering back to him, making the skin between his shoulderblades itch and crawl.

"Who? Rebecca Nightrod?"

"Yeah, her."

"Yes, of course." A pause. "If the thought of being at the hospital with her there frightens you, I'd be happy to remove her."

Nathan wondered what exactly Ofdensen meant by that, then decided that he didn't want to know. "No, no." He sighed. "I'm not a pussy, Ofdensen. I'm goin'."

_( / )_

_( / )_

_( / )_

Nathan was not, of course, put in the same room with Rebecca Nightrod. It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered, save for her hate for him.

If Nathan's hate for Rebecca was blacker and deeper than anything he had ever experienced before, Rebecca's hatred for Nathan surpassed even that remarkable depth of malignity. It was darker than the dark matter between the spreading stars, and as wide and deep and elemental as that same primordial stuff. It was churning in her guts, in her veins, like magma deep within the earth, waiting only for the pressure of time and emotions to bring it explosively to the surface.

And that time, unknown even to Ofdensen, had come.

Her hand, thin and pale and weak, twitched. Then it clenched.

Her eyes, closed for so long, opened to the hateful artificial dawn of the overhead lights.

She smelled familiar scents -- antiseptic, cleaning fluid, the smell of her own ruined body -- and thought of Nathan, and hated, hated, hated.

The machines that monitored her heart rate began to beep faster. A nurse came in, and gasped at the sight. "Miss Nightrod!"

She wanted to touch her face. She needed something that wasn't hateful to her, something she could rely on. For her, her beauty had always been that thing. She tried to raise her hand, but was too weak to manage it. Then she tried to speak. Her mouth was too dry.

The nurse approached. Slowly, hesitantly, as if fearful. _Fearful of what? I'll give them all something to fear when I'm done with Nathan._

Rebecca slowly worked spit into her dry mouth, licked it over her cracked lips. It seemed to take a lifetime. _Does NOTHING about me work anymore?_ The thought frightened her.

"I... want... a mirror." She gasped for breath, then struggled on. "Help me. Please."

"Miss Nightrod..." The nurse sounded almost frightened.

Rebecca was not accustomed to being denied anything. She drew as much breath into her body as her aching lungs could stand, then released it in a shriek. "NOOOOW!" The effort left her exhausted and she didn't speak after that, but the sight of the nurse turning wildly and running away as if Rebecca had risen from her bed and was chasing after her.

_They'd better bring me what I want._ But her display of temper failed to comfort her. She was not in her father's house, under her father's care; she was in Mordland, in the Mordhaus, and with the people she hated most in the world. People who cared nothing for her. She was surprised, in a way, that she was still alive. She wondered if Nathan thought he still loved her. After all, he was enough of a fool to believe in that concept. Perhaps. And if he did, she could use that to her advantage. iI will use everything I can to my advantage; I know I'm going to need it./i

Shortly, the nurse returned, Ofdensen in tow. She was carrying a mirror, just as Rebecca had asked, and Rebecca smiled.

**To be continued...**


	2. The Bitch is Back

**DethCrush**

_**Chapter Two: The Bitch is Back**_

Charles Ofdensen couldn't believe his eyes. Or rather, he could believe them, but was desperately hoping that he wouldn't have to.

Rebecca lay in her hospital bed like a ravaged queen, her broken face sallow and shadowed but her wasted body still retaining something of the poisonous beauty that had first allured Nathan. Her muscles were atrophied, but her breasts were still firm, still round and full. She might not be able to walk, but Charles knew that if she was capable of fucking, she'd do it. She was like an animal in that way -- a creature of base and often disgusting needs.

"What can I do for you, Rebecca?"

Her face twisted up. "What can you do for me? Get me some fucking water! I thirst!"

"Nurse," Charles said, "please do as she asks."

Rebecca's hands twitched. Their nails were like grimy daggers, chipped and white and splintering. "Give me that mirror." Her voice was choked and thick; the words gurgled out like vomit. The look in her pale eyes was greedy, lustful. She wanted the only person she had ever loved: herself.

And suddenly Charles was filled with a molten rush of hatred for this creature, this _bitch_ who had tried to destroy one of his own. _I should have smothered you rather that let you awaken,_ he thought. _But since I can't do that now, I'll just kill you another way. I hope you can still love yourself after a look in this mirror, bitch._

The nurse leaned forward to hand Rebecca the mirror, but Charles stopped her with a gentle touch to her arm. He took it himself and placed it in Rebecca's hand, wrapping her bony fingers around the handle. Her hand was light and cold and as knobby-hard as a bird's foot. She propped it up on her body; it was too heavy for her to even lift.

She looked. She saw. She screamed.

Nothing could have sounded sweeter to Charles at that moment. Pity was a quality almost unknown to him; mercy even more so. To him, Rebecca deserved neither. He saw her dented face crumple, her lips flexing with pain, cracking open as they moved, her mouth oozing blood as a prelude to the tears. Her breath wheezed like a clogged reed instrument. A fine aerosol mist of snot came from her flaring nostrils.

"What do you think?" He had to grind it in a little; it gave him a distant sort of pleasure.

Ugly blotches of red bloomed over her hollowed cheekbones like deformed roses. The mirror slipped from her limp hand and thudded to the floor with a snap of shattering glass.

She looked utterly destroyed, and that was the best revenge he could hope for at the moment.

"You'll be given rehab to get your strength back up to where you can walk on your own," he said. "And then you'll be leaving, Miss Nightrod."

"Nathan?" she said bleakly.

"He'll see you when you leave." _And then never again._

Her head settled back deeper into the pillow. She closed her eyes, as if wearying of being awake and wanting to slip back into the coma again. He took that as a sign that the conversation was over, and departed.

He next checked up on Nathan, who was sporting several bruises on his face, a cast up to his elbow on his right arm, and a thick splint on the middle finger of his left hand.

Nathan avoided his gaze for several long, uncomfortably silent minutes. Finally, the singer cleared his throat and said weakly, "Murderface isn't too fucked up... is he?"

Charles pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with an index finger. "I believe he has a concussion, but he should be fine."

Nathan gave him a feeble but clearly relieved smile. "That's 'cause Skwis swings like a girl."

"As you say. The real reason I wanted to talk with you, Nathan, is because Rebecca Nightrod has just come out of her coma."

At first, Nathan just made a strangled sound of horror, his mouth opening and closing several times like a fish that had been viciously yanked from its home in the watery depths. His eyes bulged. The strangled sound gained power and pitch and began to sound like a pressure cooker letting off a little steam before it finally explodes.

And then it hit. _"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"_

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Not that it was a new feeling for him, but Murderface was feeling lonely.

Also, his head hurt like a bitch, which also wasn't new, given that he tended to slam his forehead into walls whenever he was alone and feeling particularly frustrated with his life. However, being hit over the back of the noggin with a Gibson X-Plorer was a whole 'nother flavor of pain. He savored it for a moment, but then the taste soured as his short-term memory switched back on and he remembered screaming at Nathan last night that he hated him and he was worried for him. He remembered slamming his compact, blocky fist into Nathan's balls after his confession, after Nathan had laughed at him. He remembered picking a fight with Nathan today precisely because of that incident the night before. He remembered the thick, sharp, twig-like snapping sound of Nathan's finger breaking in his grasp.

And that hurt. It hurt like a punch to the solar plexus, like a hand slammed down on a hot stovetop, like a steel-toed kick to the balls. Hard, merciless, unforgiving, uncaring, immediate and inescapable. And he wasn't enjoying it, either.

_Why?_ Why had he been going so insane with rage and hate and worry and fear towards and for Nathan these past several weeks? The only answer he could come up with was that Nathan was... well, the closest thing to a best friend he'd ever had in his life. Sure, Pickles was friendlier, Toki was kinder, Skwisgaar was more infuriating and entertaining in his general arrogance and stupidity. But Nathan had been a constant in Murderface's miserable life for so long that he couldn't imagine it without him. Nathan was his friend, despite their free-flowing trading of insults over looks, habits, music, and so many other things. He trusted Nathan, and somehow he knew Nathan trusted him, deep down inside in a place that neither man would ever admit out loud to having within his soul. And just having that unspoken knowledge, that unspoken trust, was good for Murderface.

His musings darkened, as they always did. Correction -- he _had_ trusted Nathan. Not anymore.

_And over what? A stupid little girl!_

Murderface reminded himself that he had good reason to doubt Nathan's judgment where women were concerned. As younger men together, Nathan had always been a push-over for women. He would try to act the gentleman with them if it served his or their purposes. He would take them out to dinner (even if it was just to Burzum's or an even cheaper take-out fast-food joint like Dimmu Burger, which was usually all they could afford). He would buy them shit like candy and flowers and perfume at random times because he could never remember birthdays or anniversaries or holidays like Valentine's. He would take them to fairs and go on rides with them. He would, in short, attempt once in a while to treat them like they were human beings, which was largely alien to Murderface.

Murderface had asked him about that, once, when they were both teenagers. As he thought on it, the memory came back to him, sudden as a dream, stronger than the reality he was theoretically occupying right now...

_They were sitting around together in the basement of Nathan's parent's house, drinking cheap beer and smoking even cheaper dope. The stuff was all so weak that you had to smoke and drink a lot of both to get the effect you wanted, so that their clothing and hair reeked of smoke and their stomachs and bladders were quickly full. Murderface had felt frustrated by this, as he always did. _

_He got up to piss in a corner with a drainage grate fixed near it while Nathan tuned the strings of his bass. Both boys played bass guitar, but Murderface had an edge with the instrument. Nathan was too slow, and when he got nervous his hands would sweat and his fingers would slip. Murderface would never admit it, for fear of a sizable knuckle sandwich, but he was proud at being better at something than Nathan was. It felt... good. _

_Murderface stopped pissing and Nathan put the bass down with a loud sigh. He ran his hands through his black hair -- which was steadily growing out into a wild thicket-like mess ever since he'd broken his foot and quit high school football -- and picked up a picture of his current girlfriend. Murderface didn't know her name. He zipped up, looked over his shoulder at Nathan, and glared as the bigger teen sighed again. _

_"You schound like my grandma, Nate," he jeered. _

_Nathan didn't turn around. His shaggy hair and the fringe on his battered leather jacket flapped in the steady breeze of the basement's portable plug-in air conditioner. "Wash your nasty hands," he grunted. "And shut up about Shelly."_

_"Oh, that'sch her name." Murderface went and washed his hands in the ice-cold tap that ran from the ugly, utilitarian sink that he'd helped Nathan install last summer. "Nathan and Schhelly, schitting in a tree, K-I-SCH-SCH-I-N-G..."_

_"Shut the fuck up!" Nathan yelped, spinning around. He shoved the Polaroid into the pocket of his grubby jeans and snatched up his bass, stalked over to the wall, plugged it in, and began to play the thing thunderously loud -- so loud, in fact, that Murderface was very glad that Nathan's parents were gone for the weekend, because they definitely would have bitched about it. Hell, he was expecting the next-door neighbors to bitch about it. He kept his ears cocked for the usual telephone ring from upstairs, but it didn't come. Yet. _

_Nathan ended the impromptu virtuoso solo with a squealing slide up the bass's strings with his pick. He turned and glared at Murderface and Murderface sat down beside him. "That wasch... pretty good, Nathan," he said consolingly. "For you."_

_"I said shut up," Nathan muttered. His mane of black hair swayed in the breeze as he bent over his bass. He didn't play anything more, though. "At least I have a girlfriend. And she likes me." He looked up at Murderface through a dark curtain of ruffled hair. "You make no effort, Murderface. That's your problem."_

_Murderface sputtered. "You -- you -- you __**dickface**__! Schaying I make no effort! Why -- I -- I change my underwear __**and**__ wasch my hair every time we go out on double-datesch together!"_

_Nathan sniffed critically. "Well, you gotta do more. You gotta buy 'em shit and talk to 'em and kiss 'em. You can't just -- grab their ass and expect them to lay down and spread 'em. Well. You can if you're popular. But I'm not popular anymore. And you were never popular. So take it from me, I guess."_

_"Why, though? Why d'you buy 'em schit like flowersch and candiesch and crap? Does that really help you get into their pantsch faster?"_

_Nathan stared at him. "Uhhh... yes. Yes it does." He plunked a few slow notes on the bass with his fingers. "And they like it. Makes 'em feel good. Like I said, Murderface, if you only tried... and no, that doesn't mean changing your filthy underwear, like, once a month."_

_Murderface had nothing to counter that with, and it stung. "You schut up, Schhelly-lover."_

_Nathan shrugged his massive shoulders. "Least I'm gettin' some. Sucks to be you, I guess." He snapped off a quick, parodic minor-chord solo on his bass that was specifically designed to irritate and mock Murderface even further. The really pissy thing of it was, Nathan's skill with the instrument seemed directly proportional to how pissed-off and irritated Murderface was with him..._

Alone in his hospital bed, Murderface sighed heavily and tried to pull his mind out of the decaying, reeking swamp of despair that was his past. He couldn't quite remember how the session had ended, due to all the drinking and pot-smoking, but he thought that he had ended up grabbing his own bass, plugging it in, and slugging it out musically with Nathan. Then they'd probably ended up slugging it out with their fists. Good times, good times. Or at least, better times than now. _Sucks to be me, indeed._

Hard as it had been to admit, Nathan had been right. He knew how to treat women, and thus, how to get from them what he wanted. The only problem was when he let what he wanted from them control him. And then, they could control him.

Murderface had seen it before, in the train-wreck monstrosity popularly known as "Natebecca". He'd seen Rebecca Nightrod dominate, distort, and come damn close to destroying not only Nathan's life, but the lives of the whole band, as well. He'd seen that bitch sink her claws into Nathan's soul and worm her rotten way into his life until finally all he could think about was her.

And Murderface would be damned if he let it happen again with this Angel bitch that Nathan was currently pining over. Angel, or whatever her damn name was; it was too fuckin' hard to pronounce.

He knew that this conniving bitch had schemed to get on the Dethcopter after the _Blood Ocean_ premiere, and he knew that Nathan must have given her a genuine Dethklok pass-card to get on board, otherwise she'd have been shot on sight by the Klokateers. He knew that she'd probably spilled out some manipulative sob story to Nate; a sob story that had made Nathan kick his _real_ friends, his brothers, out of the Behemoth lounge so he could listen to her whine. A sob story that had (and this made Murderface gag on his own rage) made Nathan feel so damn gooey towards her that he had given her his ice-beer-cream. _Was she worthy of it, Nathan? You never offered __**me**__ any in my whole time with you, you bastard. I hope you've gotten at least one good fuck out of her. Although--_ he sneered at the thought-- _not very likely, given how upright you've been acting._

He just had one word for women like that: _bitches_. Oh, sure, this new one might seem nice, she might act sweet, she might speak softly, but in the end she was carrying a big fuckin' stick around behind her back and the first chance she got she'd whack Nathan over the head with it and make him into her fawning, drooling slave. And it'd be up to Murderface and the rest of them to save Nathan again.

Well, not anymore. Not now. He was going to take matters into his own two hands. No manipulative cow would be allowed to destroy William Murderface's best friend's life... even if that friend was a blind, love-sick idiot like Nathan Explosion.

_**To be continued... **_


	3. A Fool For Love

_**Chapter Three: A Fool for Love**_

It was weeks before Nathan's hands stopped hurting so badly, and it was weeks before Rebecca could walk properly again (and even after that, she still tired easily). Neither of them sought the other out. They both lived in the Mordhaus, but they might as well have been living on different hemispheres of the Earth.

Nathan, for his part, never wanted to see Rebecca again. He wanted to forget her, forget that he had ever been so taken advantage of and duped by a woman. He knew that if he saw her, he would just go crawling back and end up apologizing to her in some way, and that would start up the whole vicious cycle all over again.

_It'd start with me apologizing about her falling down the stairs,_ he thought darkly. _"Sorry, Rebecca, that I tried to talk with you, and you told me to shut up, and then fell down the stairs." Fuck that, that wasn't my fault._

Rebecca, for her part, also did not want to see Nathan again. She had no interest in having sex with him; she had to concentrate too much on restoring her shattered psyche and confidence in herself. She was ugly now, there was no other word for it, and the loss of her beauty was the only thing that could ever potentially destroy her.

She still thought of that nightmarish moment with the mirror, that shattering instant when she had looked into the looking-glass and saw a pallid, sun-starved, scar-faced monster staring back at her, its eyes glassy with shock and hate and pain. The mouth had become cracked and swollen, the complexion waxy and sallow, like old fat left to spoil in a pan, the skin scarred and pocked and lumpen with deformities. Only her body, scarred in places but whole and working and largely untouched, was left to her.

And she intended to use it.

Every day, she pressed herself. Every day, she exercised. Every day, she walked until her aching legs could not support her. She pressed herself hard -- too hard, according to the laconic doctor who was the head of the Mordhaus medical staff.

"You'll over-exert your body, injure yourself, and then be right back here in this bed, right where you started, or worse," he said to her one evening as she ate her hospital dinner with swift, unhappy efficiency.

"I won't," she told him, sparing him a single quick, cold glance before turning back to her meal.

He rolled his eyes and started to say "Whatever," but something about her glance must have stopped him. He stared at her a while longer, then said quietly, "You have a great deal of determination, Miss Nightrod."

She tilted her head up proudly. "I always have. That's the only way I can live. With a purpose in mind."

He nodded. "As you say. Well, goodnight." And he had left her then, to finish the rest of her dinner in peace and solitude.

Of course, after Rebecca had made that bold declaration, that existential rationalization for her continued existence on this good Earth, she had to think of what exactly her true purpose might be. She might have been a tennis star once, but she hadn't played professionally for years, not after a leg injury had disqualified her from competition. Modeling and acting were both out of the question. Her life as she had known it was over.

So she had to build herself up, remake herself, and arise triumphant from the ashes of her own ugliness. The flame that burned her flesh and seared her soul was a single, vital emotion: _hate_. And the need that haunted her sleep and shadowed her thoughts? _Revenge_.

That was her purpose, her lust, her lover, her need above all others. With that accomplished, she could die happily.

Seducing Nathan again and destroying him through his need for sex was an impossibility. She'd accepted that. Seducing the band's manager was an even more unlikely proposition than the chance of again snaring Nathan; when she looked into Ofdensen's eyes, there was nothing there that suggested any understanding of sexual passion at all. Pickles the Drummer was another no, and besides, she had no interest in him to begin with. The childish Norwegian guitarist -- again, no. She briefly considered trying to seduce Murderface, who, she figured, was so hideously unattractive that he'd probably jump at the chance if someone willingly spread her legs for him, but then she remembered how cold he had always been to her even before her accident, and figured that even he would probably be staying away from her, free sex or no.

That left one other possible candidate for her malignly erotic attentions. Skwisgaar Skwigelf.

She knew that the blond guitarist's unusual kinks drove him to seek out the affections of old women, pregnant women, fat women. Rebecca's own mother, Gloria, had supposedly slept with Skwisgaar when they went to their first Dethklok concert together; that had been when Rebecca had met and fucked Nathan. Gloria Nightrod had gone on and on the next morning about how good Skwisgaar had been, how handsome he was, how courteous, thoughtful, and considerate he was in bed.

When Rebecca remembered that, her lips curved in an acrid smile. _Don't worry, Mother, I had my fun that night as well. And now I intend to have more._

Her plans were nearly spoiled when Ofdensen came to her one morning. She was awake and eating a fruit cup with a bowl of vanilla yogurt -- a good breakfast for a day of hard work.

"Good morning, Charles," she said, suppressing any possible sign of her displeasure at the sight of him.

Ofdensen's bland face was a smooth, unreadable mask. Only his eyes showed her the depths of his hatred for her, and they were cold and grey. "Miss Nightrod. You seem to be recovering remarkably."

"So it seems." She savored a bite of peach, knowing what would come next.

"When you're capable of travel, I will have to ask you to leave the Mordhaus. Permanently. If you wish to see Nathan once before you leave, I can arrange a meeting, but--"

"You'll have to be there at all times during that meeting, I suppose, just so Nathan doesn't lose all control and whip it out for one last good-bye screw?" She smirked as Ofdensen's carefully controlled non-expression slid for a moment, his surprise revealing itself in the twitch of an eyebrow and the momentary slackening of his taut mouth. It felt good to be vulgar, to have shocked him. Well, she had more in store.

"That's not really the issue," he finally said, sounding only mildly exasperated.

"Oh, I think it is," she replied. "You don't want me to sleep with Nathan again. I understand that, and I understand why."

After a while, he said, "That is correct."

"Well, you'll be oh so happy to know that I have no intention of that."

He was as silent and still as an Easter Island statue.

"You could at least crack a smile, Charles. Or would that crack your face?"

Again, silence. Stillness. But there was the dangerous sense of something leased, like a wolf at the end of a chain. She held her breath.

Finally, he said, "I want you to leave by the end of next week. Are you strong enough to do that?"

She met his gaze squarely. There was no use in lying. "Yes."

"Then please do so. You'll be given clothes, money, transportation to wherever you might wish to go."

"If I was grateful to you, I would thank you, Charles."

His mouth twisted slightly. It was not a smile. "No need, Miss Nightrod. No need at all."

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Nathan's right hand and arm were still too sore to do much writing in longhand for lengthy stretches, and he had never been a good typist, so instead he was thinking up lyrics and just speaking them into his PDA.

_Actually, I kinda like it like this._ One thing he knew about himself was that he could think faster than he could speak, and he could speak faster than he could write. Usually. And only Nathan could read his own lyrics notes. His atrocious handwriting was much like the impenetrably Byzantine secret code Skwisgaar used for writing down guitar and bass riffs instead of simply learning how to properly read and write music. Nathan had seen some of Skwisgaar's stuff once, and then sworn to never clap eyes on it ever again, because just looking at it and trying to figure out what it all meant had given him a headache. Hearing Skwisgaar attempt to explain it in both broken English and Swedish had only intensified the pain.

So here he was, pouring out his ideas for songs into his overworked PDA, singing them at times, growling, yelling, trying to get a feel for the cadence and the rhythm, how things should flow, what should be emphasized. As he spoke he jotted down some brief notes for guitar riffs and drumbeats with his left hand (having only one broken finger on that hand made it easier for him to write with, even though it was slower and made for even worse handwriting than his right). They were only thoughts, fragments of ideas. He'd ultimately leave the guitar writing and drumming to the experts, Skwisgaar and Pickles.

He took a quick swig of beer, then drew in a breath and waited for inspiration to hit. When it did, he snapped on the PDA.

"FUUUUUUUCKERS!" he yelled in a loud, rasping shriek that was surprising higher than his usual growl. He liked it, and barreled on.

"Traitors, backstabbing

Cowards, commiserating

False friends played for fools

A blood-bath is coming

A battle you'll lose...

Cockblocker Killfest!

A feast of entrails ripped from flesh

Awash in blood

As she and I

Bathe in a sanguine flood

Feast on their eyes

Tear out tongues

That spoke of our demise

Cockblocker Killfest!

You and I, drenched in blood

I lick you clean

Expunging the stain

Our ultimate pleasure

Is the traitors' pain... "

He stopped. Considered. Okay, the rhymes didn't entirely work, and it was a little rough. But it was a start. Just... where the hell had _that_ come from?

He shut off the PDA and thought about it. He'd had an idea for a song like that ever since returning from the _Blood Ocean_ premiere, but just hadn't been able to get it out of his system. This felt like a start, but it was also very different from anything Nathan had ever written before.

He turned on the PDA, played back the audio. He felt quite proud of the scream at the beginning (great intro to a song, there), and the lyrics were suitably violent and vicious, as any good metal song's should be, but upon second thought... had he just written a _love song?_

He played the embryonic beginnings of the song back again. "A feast of entrails ripped from flesh--" he grinned at that; nice imagery -- "Awash in blood/As she and I/Bathe in a sanguine flood"...

Nathan blinked, licked his lips. Damn. Hot _damn._ Now he was thinking of bathing in blood with a naked chick. Mmm.

He fast-forwarded to the rest of the song. "You and I, drenched in blood/I lick you clean/Expunging the stain/Our ultimate pleasure/Is the traitors' pain. . . "

The song ended. Nathan adjusted his pants. Mmm, this shit was turning him on. A little. Actually, more than a little. This was like, his ultimate fantasy.

He pressed "Record" on the PDA and started again, his voice deeper, slower, more melodic.

"I kiss your lips, stained with gore

Your sighs and screams inflame me more

As we make love on our bridal bed

Our bodies writhe atop severed heads

Sweat and blood mingle as one

Gore and semen; the act is done

Pact is sealed; blood is shed

A slaughterfest for which we've wed..."

He grunted. Now he was doing neat couplets. He'd have to work the precise nature of the rhymes out later. Damn. That was _definitely_ a love song. He felt very strange and very brutal and very turned-on all at the same time.

Love songs, he'd always thought, were not metal. They were as far from metal as it was thematically possible to go. But this was definitely a love song, yet the thought of mating with someone atop a pyre of severed heads was definitely metal. Nathan blinked and holistically reconciled the two seemingly diametrically opposed concepts in his head by virtue of the surpassing brutality of the lyrics. And, the surpassing hotness of the lyrics. _Girls will _throw_ themselves at us when we do this one live..._

For a moment, just to arouse himself further, he imagined them, screaming, howling, a forest of arms and bared breasts, waiting for Dethklok, wanting Dethklok as they had never wanted Dethklok before. But then the images faded away. He couldn't picture their faces. He couldn't picture their expressions as they responded to his touch. The song had spoken of him licking his lover's flesh clean, of kissing her lips -- in short, making love to her in such a position that he could see her face. And only one face was coming to mind right there and then. Angélique.

The imagery was as poignant as it was potent. Angélique, he knew, was a gentle soul, a fragile soul, a delicate flower that had been plucked from a cruel and abusive environment. Much like Toki, she needed consideration where her sensitivities were concerned. He doubted that she would find such imagery as arousing as he did.

But still, the imagery was there, and he couldn't shake it. He heaved a shuddering, growly sigh and unzipped his jeans fully, just to ease the pressure on his groin. He could picture her perfectly; those full, wide lips of hers, curving in a smile, thin rivulets of crimson running from their corners. Her grey eyes would be wide and shining in a mask of blood. Her unbound blonde hair dyed red with gore. Her body wet and naked and slick and red beneath his fingers, as she lay back and asked for him, only him, to be with her, to please her, to fill her...

Nathan's good left hand wandered down his belly and slipped into the gap of his opened jeans. He kept fantasizing and gave a grunting whimper as his body followed along with the imagery and carried it along to the finish. _Oh boy._

He shakily got up, cleaned his hand, changed his jeans, and sat back down. _What am I doing?_ This was a different turn of events for Dethklok. He didn't know how the others would react if he were to show them a song that featured his veiled (or not so veiled) fantasy about slaughtering them all and then having sex atop their mangled corpses. Probably not well, given how pissed Murderface still was with him. _Murderface _has_ to be gay. Just how asshurt can a straight guy be at the thought of his best friend having a girlfriend, after all?_ Actually, just the thought of pissing them all off made him want to do the song even more, just to stick to them for being such nosy, irritating, cockblocking idiots.

Filled with new enthusiasm, he switched the PDA on again, thumbed the "Record" button, and began to growl out some more lyrics off the top of his head, not pausing to think and adjust the words or even barely to breathe:

"Blood -- boiling

Soul -- roiling

As your skin is seared away

You won't live another day

Dead dead dead

Lard dripping from your head

You're on fire, fire, fire

And the flames are rising higher

Scream and scream, try to flee

Your eyes are blind -- cannot see

Your meat is falling off the bone

My carving knife I must hone

You're a pig -- a slaughtered beast

On your carcass I shall feast

Welcome to hell

Burn in it

Die in it

Burn for her, burn for me--"

He drew in a breath, and roared out the last lines as loudly as he could--

YOUR BLOOD IS A BOILING STEW

AND I'M THE CHEF -- BON APPETITE!"

Pleased with himself, he switched off the PDA. He was fully aware of the fact that Grishnack was alive. He intended to dedicate this song to him in the upcoming CD's liner notes.

He pulled out a messy stack of papers with his left hand and flipped through them. He had been scribbling down song lyrics or snippets of the same before his hands had been busted. He took a quick inventory of the songs. With _Cock-blocker Killfest, Blood Boiling, Eat It And Choke, Flesh-melted Fuck-face,_ and the songs he'd done for the now-defunct _Blood Ocean_'s soundtrack, he had a full album's worth of material. He grinned and looked over his notes for guitar tabs and drums. _Should take this to Skwisgaar and Pickles and let 'em look it over..._

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

The whetstone slid against the knife's edge with a satisfyingly slick, metallic sound. Murderface grinned; he loved that sound. It was so... elemental, so musical, in its way. He put the stone down and surveyed the knife's edge. It gleamed, a hair-thin line of glaringly brilliant steel. "Bright asch the fuckin' schun," he muttered, then licked his callused thumb and prepared to test the edge.

His ritual was spoiled when the PA system speaker above his bed crackled and then buzzed. "Huh?" He looked up and then set the knife aside with a growl of disappointment.

"Attention, Dethklok members," Nathan's voice growled. "Uhh, band meeting. I'm callin' a band meeting. Dining room, be there or be nowhere." A pause. "That means you, Murderface. C'mon. Got some things I need to discuss. So, band meeting. Now."

Murderface gave the PA speaker the finger. He didn't move. He picked up his knife and tested the edge on his finger. The callus, toughened by years of constant, dogged bass-playing, didn't break, and he knew he would have to press a lot harder, and possibly risk cutting off part of his finger, to cut through the callus.

He sighed, sharpened the knife some more. He could test the edge on a less-callused part of his body, but that would be sissy. It would be un-brutal. It wouldn't be Murderface's style, not at all.

He didn't test the edge on any of his fingers again. Instead, he decided to test it on some of the gnarliest, thickest, toughest calluses on his body. He took a deep breath; this notion was the ultimate test; the most brutal display of reckless masculinity that William Murderface knew of.

Wincing only slightly, he gripped the knife firmly with one hand, and unzipped his pants with the other...

The PA crackled again, louder this time. "MURDERFACE," Nathan's voice was now loud enough and deep enough to make Murderface's bed vibrate underneath him. Hell, he could feel Nathan's voice shaking his _bones_. "MURDERFACE, I _KNOW_ YOU'RE AVOIDING ME. BAND MEETING. DINING ROOM. _NOW_." The PA snapped off with an electronic whine. Murderface could just picture Nathan smashing the thing's power switch to "off" with his fist.

"Oh, _fuck_ you, Nate!" he snarled, and flung the knife across the room, where it slammed into his door and hung up there, jammed into the thick oak halfway to the hilt. He zipped up. "You -- you just _ruin_ everything, don't you?"

He got up and slogged to the dining room. Everyone else was there. Nathan nodded at him when he noticed Murderface walking in. "Murderface, have a seat."

Murderface snorted with disdain, but grabbed a chair anyway, spun it around, and sat down, resting his arms on the chair's back.

Nathan cleared his throat. "Now that we're done with that _Blood Ocean_ crap, I think we should start working on putting together another record. I've got some new songs, and since we've got the ones for _Blood Ocean_, we pretty much have a whole CD's worth, right here. We just need the music." He whipped out his PDA. "Any of you dicks wanna listen to my lyrics?" There was a nasty hint of a nasty smile playing around the corners of Nathan's thin lips that Murderface didn't like.

Everyone nodded, darting surreptitious glances at each other. This was something different, and they weren't quite sure if they liked it.

Nathan's eyes gleamed like a predator's at night. Of course he could sense their discomfort; hell, he could probably _smell_ it. A sick feeling began to build in Murderface's stomach. _This isn't gonna be good. For us._ And he knew that whatever was going to happen, Nathan was going to enjoy it.

Nathan thumbed his PDA on, and everyone else gave a short, sharp, collective flinch, as if he was playing a game of Russian Roulette with them one by one.

Nathan's opening screech of _"FUUUUUUUCKERS!"_ made everyone else jump again, even higher this time. Toki whimpered. Nathan grinned.

"That's pretty metal, Nate," Pickles started to say, before the rest of the song came on, and the band was collectively (save for Nathan, of course) reduced to utter horror.

_"Cockblocker Killfest!_

_A feast of entrails ripped from flesh_

_Awash in blood_

_As she and I_

_Bathe in a sanguine flood. . . ."_

Murderface blanched in horror. His eyes darted to Nathan's face. Nathan was grinning quite evilly.

"You _didn't!_" Pickles screamed.

The grin widened. "I did."

"But yous always say. . . ." Skwisgaar started.

"I know." Nathan leaned back and folded his arms across his chest as the song played on.

_"I kiss your lips, stained with gore_

_Your sighs and screams inflame me more_

_As we make love on our bridal bed_

_Our bodies writhe atop severed heads_

_Sweat and blood mingle as one_

_Gore and semen; the act is done_

_Pact is sealed; blood is shed_

_A slaughterfest for which we've wed..."_

Murderface screamed and fell over, taking the chair down with him in a crashing, painful tangle.

Nathan shut off the PDA, and Pickles got up and looked down at Murderface. "Dude, I think ya traumatized Murderface with your..." the drummer shuddered, "your love song."

"Not just any love song," Nathan growled, "a _metal_ love song. It's metal, guys."

"But it's a loves song!" Skwisgaar screamed. "_Love! Pffft!_ That's not metal!"

"I agreeing with Skwisgaar that it's not metal," Toki said, "but I... I like love songs."

"Shuts up, Toki," Skwisgaar snapped. "No one care what you likes."

Nathan came over and prodded Murderface with the toe of his boot. "Murderface? You okay?"

"Nathan!" Murderface wailed. "How could you?" He felt genuinely betrayed; how could Nathan do this to them? And he had a pretty good idea of who the girl was in the song, too...

Nathan's brow wrinkled. "Huh? What the hell are you on about? I just... you know how I write stuff, Murderface. That's the way I'm feeling at the moment."

"YEAH, LIKE YOU WANT TO KILL US AND SCREW WITH THAT ANGEL-BITCH ON OUR CORPSES!" Murderface screamed, lunging up to yell right in Nathan's face.

Nathan straightened up and hauled Murderface to his feet. "You're exa--exzagerat--exsanguinate--you're being a dick, Murderface. I'm not gonna kill you. But you were a bunch of cock-blocking assholes when I was trying to -- to -- you know, kiss her. Back on the Dethcopter." He looked away and blushed.

"Us?" Pickles said, in a tone of high dudgeon. "_Us?_ Well, excuse me for interrupting your little lip-locking session, pal, I had NO idea. Why don't you just, I dunno, call us all on your Dethphone and let us know whenever you're having a make-out session. We'll _try_ not to interfere."

"Yeah, that's... that's actually a good idea," Nathan said.

Skwisgaar _pffft_ed.

"But _look_," Nathan thundered, slamming his left fist down on the table so hard that Murderface _knew_ his finger had to be hurting again, "I gave you a song demo, Pickles, Skwisgaar. Now go and do your fuckin' jobs. Pickles, you think up some drumming for it. Skwisgaar, guitars and bass. Get your asses on it. _Nooow._"

Everyone else muttered "Fine, fine," and shuffled off.

When they were away from Nathan, Toki and Murderface clustered close to Skwisgaar and Pickles. "Nathans seems angry or somethin'," Toki said. He looked sad; his usual pep and cheer were conspicuously absent. "I hope he not hurting himselfs."

"Nathan can cut his own weenie off for all I care," Murderface said. "We'd be better off without it, actually." He looked to Skwisgaar. "You gonna schteal one a' my bassches again, dickface?"

"Of course I steals your bass," Skwisgaar said, waving his hand in a nonchalant gesture. "I steals it tonight, writes you some bass stuff. Then I returns it. You see."

Murderface crossed his arms and huffed. It was humiliating the way they treated him, as if he was some moron so incapable of composing music that they got the incomprehensible pretty-boy Swedish virtuoso to write Murderface's own bass tabs for him, but on some level he enjoyed the humiliation, and plus it just meant one less thing for him to worry about, so ultimately he was comfortable with it.

"Nathan's gettin' weird," Pickles said, taking a pack of cigarettes out of his hip pocket and lighting up. He stopped to smoke and the others stopped with him and gathered around. "I think--"

"It'sch that CHICK!" Murderface said.

"_Shhh!_ D'you want Nathan t'hear and come bust our balls?" Pickles said, waving the cigarette around as he gestured for quiet.

"Schorry. It'sch juscht that he'sch moonin' over that damn girl he got from Grischnack -- you know, the blonde with the legsch and the titsch?"

Pickles blinked, then understanding filtered into his eyes. "Oh, the babe? Yeah, she seems okay. Maybe he just needs to have sex with her and get it outta his system, you know. My theory is, the male sex drive is like a toilet's plumbing: if you don't flush it often enough, it backs up a whole lotta shit all over the floor, and then ya gotta plunge it and clean the crap up. Maybe Nate just needs to get it done and over with with her, y'know? And for some reason he hasn't, so he's fantasizin' about her bathin' in blood with 'im. I dunno. He just needs to get it on with her."

"He needsch to get hisch head out of hisch assch!" Murderface said, spraying so much spit onto Pickles's face that he accidently put the drummer's cigarette out. Ignoring Pickles's outraged, disgusted look as he dropped the soaked cigarette, wiped his face, and lit up another one, Murderface barreled on: "What Nathan needsch isch another good crack to the schkull! He needsch to break up with thisch bitch and move the fuck on with hisch life! I schay, we kidnap him again and torture him, and kill her! That'sch brutal!"

"No, we can't kill Miss Elly-ways!" Toki said, hands at his mouth, eyes wide and pale. "She's nice and sweet and abuseds! Why you wants to kill her? I go tell--"

"No, no, no!" Murderface grabbed Toki and pulled him back. "If you tell, Toki, your fingersch are gonna be making out with my knife collection--"

And then Skwisgaar punched him. The Swede had a smaller fist than Nathan, and he was nowhere near as strong, but the blow was fast, unexpected, and surprisingly powerful, and it knocked Murderface to the floor.

Blinking and staring up at an enraged Skwisgaar was about as intimidating as staring up at an angry Nathan, Murderface found. He wiped at the blood running so copiously from his nose. Skwisgaar was so incredibly tall that he blocked out the overhead lights, which nonetheless lit up the flyaway strands of his blond hair from behind as if he had a halo of light surrounding his head and shoulders. His blue eyes flashed like an angry Norse god's as he pointed his finger at Murderface and said in a shaking, deadly serious voice, _"Du kommer inte att skada Toki. Du kommer inte att röra Toki. Någonsin."_

"Schpeak Englisch, motherfucker," Murderface said, hiding his true fear of Skwisgaar and instead choosing to mock and bluster at the Swede.

It was the wrong move to make. Skwisgaar put his large, long, heavy boot right between Murderface's legs before the bassist could squirm aside and clamp his legs shut. Skwisgaar pressed down as he leaned down and snarled, "If yous _ever_ hurt Toki, I's hurting _you_, Murderface. _Bad_."

"What, you gay for him?" Murderface wheezed. Skwisgaar only pressed on his balls a little harder, making white spots of agony dance, pop, and explode in front of Murderface's blackening vision. It felt as if his balls were a bunch of grapes, and Skwisgaar was the person stomping on them trying to squeeze wine out of his nutsack.

"I kills you, if you hurt Toki," Skwisgaar said so softly that Murderface had difficulty hearing him. There was no doubting the tone, however, nor the look on Skwisgaar's oh-so-handsome face. Murderface gave up and went limp, throwing his arms out as a sign of surrender. Skwisgaar stood up and backed off, his face still stern and hard.

When Murderface's vision cleared enough to look up at them, he saw that he had lost any support he might have gained. Toki looked frightened. Skwisgaar looked murderously angry. Pickles looked disgusted.

"We ain't killin' nobody today, Murderface," he said, flicking ash onto the floor and grinding it down beneath his heel. "Toki likes the babe and so do I. She's okay. She's no Rebecca, that's for shittin' sure, and we shouldn't move against her. If anything, we should _encourage_ Nate to sleep with her. He gets it out of his system, and he goes back to likin' us. It's a win-win situation. That's what _I_ say we should do. That's the smart course of action." He took a deep drag. "You freak out about these things too much, Murderface." His voice took on a philosophical tone as he added, "Y'know, I know love songs ain't exactly brutal, but y'know, havin' a song like that in our repertoire ain't all that bad. Chicks would dig it. Couples would definitely dig it." He cracked a rather lewd grin. "Just imagine, us up there playin' this song, and all the metalhead couples down there, making out and gettin' their rocks off right in front of us! It'd be like... free porn. Free live porn. On, like, thousands of screens at once! We could dump fake blood on 'em and watch 'em go right there!"

Skwisgaar's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. "Oh, hells _ja_, I doing this song! I goes do the bass and guitars rights now! Gotta get it done, sos we cans plays it!" He turned and practically sprinted back to his rooms, leaving Murderface, Pickles, and Toki behind.

"Ummm..." Much as Murderface liked the idea of making thousands of Dethklok fans have sex in front of him, he _dis_liked the thought of giving in to the idea of playing a love song about Nathan having sex with Angélique in a bath of blood. It was the _principle_ of the thing. Also the fact that Murderface had publicly argued against it in the first place, and no way did he want to back down or look the fool in front of everyone.

Finally, he came up with a good enough insult to throw at Pickles. He'd already lost the argument; might as well go all the way and say what he wanted to. "You just say that because you want to be _popular_," he sneered, spraying out spit.

Pickles looked blank for a moment, then his pierced eyebrows drew downward over his sharp green eyes. "Dude, we _are_ popular."

_Aw, shit._ "Well..." Murderface floundered for a moment, "you're a _schell-out!_ And Schkwischgaar'sch a schellout, and Nathan'sch the biggescht schell-out of all time!" He gave Pickles what he hoped was a pleading look. "How... how can you _live_ with yourschelf? How can you schleep tonight, knowing that? How can you look in the mirror?"

"Damn easier than you can," Pickles quipped. Toki giggled before remembering Murderface's threat, and quickly shut up.

"You've made yourschelf into a fuckin' cheap whore, Picklesch, that'sch what _you_ are, a cheap coked-up, boozed-up, glam-rock-refugee whore!" Murderface raged, getting _really_ angry again now. Why did no one listen to him? Why did no one ever believe him about _anything?_ No, it was always Pickles who they turned to for practical advice, Nathan for brutality, Skwisgaar for sexual advice, Toki for gentleness and support and laughs. Never to Murderface for anything. Murderface was a dogface who had about as much worth as a sack of dog shit. Less, even. At least you could put dog shit into a bag and light it on fire and leave it on someone's doorstep. You couldn't even do that much with William Murderface.

So, of course, he channeled the pain of that realization into corrosive anger that he now spewed out against Pickles. "You want to take over Dethklok, don't you, Picklesch? You want to take it over, and make it into Schnakes 'n' fuckin' Barrelsch again, and make every fuckin' song into schome schit about schrewing a girl and her lovin' it." He jumped up. "_Well, I won't let you!_ I'm the bescht friend Nathan has _ever_ had, and I'll be--"

And then Pickles punched him. _Keep on going like that, Murderface, and you'll get punched by Toki, next. And then you'll just have to punch yourself in your ugly dogface, won't you?_ He stumbled back and wiped more blood off his tender and abused nose.

"You _asshole_. Y'know, it's one thing to be dark and brutal and it's another thing to be a juvenile, stupid asshole, Murderface. Learn the fuckin' difference, already." Pickles's face was red. He threw his cigarette butt at Murderface and stomped off. Toki followed the drummer.

Murderface let them go. He had never felt worse. He felt like killing himself, and at least inconveniencing everyone with his dead, mutilated, bloodied corpse lying around, but then he realized that the band would just have to replace him with another bass-player, and that thought hurt even worse. He then considered running away, thereby forcing them to feel guilty about making him go, but then he realized that they would probably just laugh it off and be happy that he left, the bastards.

So he decided that he'd live, and he'd stay. He'd stay as a thorn in their complacent, smug, sell-out flesh. Nathan needed to be saved from his own concupiscence. Pickles needed to be redeemed from his shamefully non-brutal glam-rock past. Skwisgaar... well, obviously Skwisgaar was a fag, wasn't he? Screw him. And Toki... well, Toki needed to toughen the fuck up, and who better to teach him how to do so than William Murderface?

_I'm staying, and I'm gonna throw a monkey-wrench in this operation, and the patient's gonna fuckin' choke on it, and then I'm gonna come in with that kick-ass electric paddles-thingy and save the fuckin' day. Just like on E.R.,_ Murderface thought to himself as he went back to his own rooms. He needed to hone his knife collection and play his bass, just to take his mind off his own anger, or at least channel it constructively. _That's what I'll do. Don't worry, Nate, I haven't given up on your sorry ass yet. I'll save you from yourself... if it's the last thing I do._

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

The true irony of the situation was that Murderface, unaware that Rebecca Nightrod had awoken from her coma, even less aware that she was plotting a meticulous and exquisitely destructive scheme of vengeance against Dethklok, was entirely unable to protect Nathan and Dethklok from their greatest threat ever faced.

For hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And that woman scorned was Rebecca Nightrod, who was not just any woman, but now was pure fury and hatred incarnate in frail, scarred human flesh. She lived for vengeance. She breathed in poison and breathed out venom. The contents of her warped and blackened soul were purely corrosive -- if they were actual, physical toxins, they could have easily killed an entire nation's population several times over. And if they had, Rebecca Nightrod would not have shed a tear.

For now, she was residing in a shanty village that huddled on a mountain-slope on the outskirts of Mordland. The village was comprised mainly of wooden and stone huts, with caves going back into the mountain in case the weather ever got so bad that the village proper needed to be evacuated. It housed prospective, current, and former Dethklok employees, hangers-ons, groupies, prostitutes, fans, and Dethklok merchandise vendors. Like the ancient villas of Rome, Mordland had its own growing peasant class of slackers, fans, and vendors who were all looking to meet their idols, work for Dethklok, or just live next to them and make a quick buck off cheap, poorly-made merchandise.

It was the perfect place for her to disappear in. No one recognized her. No one asked her why she was there. It was close enough for her to keep an eye on Dethklok through satellite feeds and radio reports, but far enough away that she hoped Charles wouldn't come looking for her. The living was rough, but she was selling her body as a prostitute, and she made some money that way. Enough to live on. She was renting a cabin that she could live in, alone (unless she had a client over, but that was only for a little while). That was good enough for her.

Every day, she thought about how she could seduce Skwisgaar. Getting to him now would be the hard part. Getting to him without Ofdensen seeing and stopping her would be even harder. Seducing him might not actually be all that difficult. She was a master of seduction, and Skwisgaar seemed an easy target. She knew his tastes in partners were unusual (to say the least), so she doubted that he would even balk at her scarred face.

It had gotten to the point where she was so obsessed with Skwisgaar that she was beginning to fantasize about him. Every man that she took back to her hut was Skwisgaar Skwigelf in the dark; sometimes she had to bit her lips to keep from calling out his name. She imagined sometimes how he would feel under her fingers, how soft his blond hair was, how blue and large his eyes were, how his lips would feel as he pressed them to her flesh in a kiss. She imagined his body, long-limbed and lean, with the softness of complacent youth mingled with the gauntness that an abusive, malnourished childhood often gives to its sufferers. He was not strong and muscular like Nathan or Toki, but he was handsome, even beautiful, and ironically, Rebecca, who had once fed on a steady diet of other people's desire of her, now found herself eating desperately of the crumbs of her own erotic imagination. She had never desired a man, never wanted a man, like she now desired and wanted Skwisgaar Skwigelf, and that thought made her hate and desire him all the more.

At evening, when the sun was setting over the mountains in a blaze of color, she would sit outside and watch the sunset. It was beautiful, but Rebecca had no love in her heart for beauty if it did not belong to her. She had to possess a thing before she loved it. And she wanted to possess Skwisgaar. _You're mine,_ she would vow, before she headed off to look for more clients to bring back to her bed. _You're already mine, even though you don't know it, and when you taste what I have to offer you, you will never be with another woman again. You'll die before that happens, sweet Skwisgaar._

_You're mine, Skwisgaar. Now... and forever._

_**To be continued... **_

_**Translations:**_ "You will not harm Toki. You will not touch Toki. Ever." BIG thanks for genuine English-to-Swedish translation goes to _frostflowers_.


	4. Plan of Confusion

_**Chapter Four: Plan of Confusion**_

Pickles was working. He really was. Truly. Pickles just happened to work best with a six-pack of beer, a handful of Toki's candy (for the sugar, as it helped energize his brain), and maybe some harder "candy", when he could get it, which was often. And, of course, his trusty Snakes 'n' Barrels vinyl albums. He never got tired of hearing those, no matter how much the other guys might bitch about it. Frankly, he always felt that Sammy had been a great drummer, probably better than Pickles himself, and whatever Sammy had become in the meantime took nothing away from the talent he'd displayed in the early days of Snakes 'n' Barrels. Pickles liked to listen to the albums while he composed his own drums section, either to glean inspiration or just enjoy some music.

So the heavy knock on the door came as a total shock to him, and furthermore, an unwelcome intrusion. No way was he turning down _his_ music just for one of those douchebags. He did, however, turn around and glare at the door, which was locked and barred. "Go the hell away! I'm writin'! And listenin' t' music! And drinking copious amounts of alcohol! Ya don't like it, go stuff a sock in your ears and a douchebag up your--"

The knock again, louder and heavier than before.

_Must be Murderface. Either that or Nathan._ On the chance that it was Murderface, he yelled, "NO, Murderface, I'm not helping you kill ANYBODY." And if it wasn't Murderface...

The third round of pounding was so fast and frantic that Pickles realized that whoever it was who was out there would actually make a pretty good drummer. Or at least a brutal drummer. "Pickles, what the hell?" Nathan bellowed. "Murderface is doing what?! Open this damn door and turn that crap down!" A pause. "I need... I need to talk!"

_Oh, shit._ He'd let Murderface's little not-so-secret out, and Nathan would want to hear about it. And then he'd probably go and make Murderface's dogface look even uglier when he did hear it. _Oh shit, oh shit. Too damn drunk, Pickles. Way too damn drunk. Ya idiot, you._ He got up, shut off the Snakes 'n' Barrels, and opened the door.

Nathan was standing there, swaying on his feet, face red and sweating, hair hanging down like a tangled, tattered curtain. His eyes had the gleam of a lost madman's, a madman who knows he is lost but doesn't really know where he's supposed to be going.

"Nathan?" Pickles said, very, very cautiously. "Can I help you?"

Nathan belched. Pickles smelled beer. _Damn, he's drunker than I am._

"Yes," Nathan finally mumbled.

"Well, sit down." Nathan obediently flopped down on Pickles's bed, making the covers and pillows jump. "Do you want... well, you're already drunk, I shouldn't give you--"

Nathan thrust out a hand. "Gimme a beer, Pickles." Pickles did so without further argument.

He sat down beside Nathan and handed him the drum tablature he'd been working on. "You wanted to look at this, or... "

"Nah. I trust... I trust your judgment there, Pickles. I just... what were you saying about Murderface killing someone?"

Pickles laughed nervously. "Uh, that was a joke, Nate."

"No it wasn't." Nathan's eyes were like twin green laser beams boring into Pickles's head. "You said he was gonna kill someone, and I want to know who."

"Ummm..." Pickles racked his brains for a way to put this as delicately and diplomatically as possible. "William is... not... happy about the course that the band is taking."

"That? Fuck that. I like that song. It's _staying._" Nathan took a long swig of beer. "What else is he asshurt about?"

"He's..." Pickles closed his eyes momentarily, opened them again, saw an irritated and concerned Nathan Explosion staring down at him. _Forgive me, Murderface._ "He's not happy about your relationship with Angélique."

Nathan's mouth dropped open. "What? That cockblocker..."

"Nathan, it ain't about cockblockin'! Now, I know what you're thinking and I know how you're feelin', but Murderface, he has his reasons, too. He looks at Angélique, and he doesn't see the girl you see. He sees another Rebecca Nightrod in the making. That's what he sees, and that's ALL that he sees, and it's frightening him. We don't want to have to go through that again."

Nathan looked sullen. "So you agree with him, is that what you're saying?" He drained the beer and threw the can across the room.

"No, no I don't. I don't agree that she's another Rebecca Nightrod. She seems sweet and cute and innocent. She's a babe, Nathan. But Murderface is frightened, and you need to reassure him."

Nathan's eyes had an ugly gleam in them. "Reass--whatever! What am I, his momma? I'm not doing that! He's an adult. He can damn well act like one." He looked down at his hands tucked in his lap, flexed them, then said softly, "Actually, I came to ask for advice."

" 'Bout what?"

"Angélique." There was a pause, then Nathan said in a rather strangled voice, "Gimme another beer. Please, Pickles."

Pickles did so. Nathan drained it in one long swallow, the cords of gristle and muscle in his throat pumping furiously. He wiped his mouth and dropped the empty can. His eyes slowly unfocused, and Pickles got out of the way before Nathan tipped over backwards and flopped onto his back, arms outstretched.

"Thanks. You know -- whenever I get drunk, I get--" he belched-- "emotional. Or mebbe the oth'r way 'round. I dunno. But, Angélique, I just can't--" his left hand curled into a fist and slammed down onto the mussed bedcovers and blankets-- "I just can't seem to get ahold of her, Pickles. She's -- different. And I don't know what to do."

Pickles's eyes widened. Nathan had never talked to him like this before. This was something new. New to him, at any rate. "Different how? You've never had any problem getting women before. 'N fact, back when Rebecca was your girlfriend, they were _throwin_' themselves at you! The Klokateers had to beat them off you with sticks! You have _never_ had problems in that area!"

"Well, I do now." Nathan stared up at him with glassy, haunted eyes. Pickles noticed the lines at their corners, the bags under their lower lids. He looked tired. Tired and drunk and frustrated. "I couldn't... when Murderface made that crack about how I couldn't get it up with the groupie on Groupie Night... he was right." Pickles's entire bed began to shake as if it had a coin-operated motor... only that motor happened to be a shaking, sobbing Nathan Explosion, and he wasn't coin-operated. Nathan lay there, his body limp as a wet noodle, and wept like an ornery, tired baby who has the mother of all diaper rashes. "Dammit, Pickles, he was fuckin' right!"

"Nathan, a lot of men feel that way. It's... it happens to all of us. If you drink too much, or do too much coke, or whatever, you can't get it up. You just..."

Nathan pushed himself up on his left forearm and stared at Pickles. "It's not that. It's -- it's all in my head. In here." He tapped the side of his head with his right hand, then lay back down. "I looked at her and I saw Rebecca. And I couldn't do anything. But when I think about Angélique... well, let's just say that I was thinkin' about her when I wrote... y'know." He blushed, and smudged at his tears with a hand.

"And you creamed your pants, right?"

A low, sobbing chuckle. "Oh boy. Right."

"Well, she's an attractive woman. And you know, Nathan? I was reading up on this psychology crap after th' whole Twinkletits thing, you know, and I think that what you have is some sort of aversion syndrome. You're avoiding any woman who makes you think of Rebecca, which is good, don't get me wrong, but you want something that's not Rebecca, so you've fixated on Angélique, who's about as far away from Rebecca Nightrod as you can go. She's the Anti-Rebecca." Pickles went and got himself another beer, popped it open, and chugged. "She's also better-looking than Rebecca, if you ask me."

"Which I didn't." Nathan glared at him over the pudgy expanse of his black-clad stomach.

"Hey, you did."

"I just want advice."

"Well, you got it, _amigo_." Pickles drank some more beer.

"Thanks. No, really. I mean it." Nathan puffed out his belly and released the air in a mournful sigh. "I just want to know how I can get to know her."

"Ask her."

"Ask her what?"

"Ask her questions, ask her out? I dunno, what do you do with other girls?"

"Uhhh, with groupies, they just take their pants or their underwear off and spread 'em. Usually they're not even wearing underwear. With Rebecca I didn't really do anything. She wouldn't let me."

Pickles looked at his friend with renewed sympathy. _A babe as hot as Rebecca Nightrod... and she wouldn't even do him? No wonder the poor sap has blue balls._ He decided to make it his mission in life, as of this moment, to help Nathan get laid, so help him Satan.

"I don't feel like I c'n talk to her as 'Nathan Explosion, Dethklok guy, billionaire, most metal singer ever'," Nathan continued. "She doesn't give a crap about that. She's not gonna just jump me without any panties on. But she's not Rebecca. She's not gonna punch me in the face or in the balls because I look at her funny."

"So maybe you just need to talk to her as Nathan Explosion, regular jack-off."

"That'll be a stretch. I mean... I gotta remember all this crap..."

"Well, how did you get girls _before_ Dethklok? Before you were famous? C'mon, man, think! I know you've had girlfriends before this. Come on."

Nathan thought. It was hard. "I... I bought 'em stuff."

"And you took 'em out to dinner and a movie?"

"Dimmu Burger and th' local drive-in, yeah."

"Good, we're gettin' somewhere. Did you remember any anniversaries, buy 'em any gifts, kiss 'em and snuggle 'em?"

"Yeah an' yeah an' yeah. An' yeah."

"Good, women like that stuff."

Nathan thumped a fist on the bed. "I know! I was always telling Murderface that when we were kids together. 'Murderface', I'd say, 'you're an effin' slob, you make no effort, you're disgusting, you treat the girls like dog shit...' Hey, maybe..."

Pickles snapped his fingers. "There's the key, Nate."

"Don't treat her like shit? Yeah, like I want to do _that_, idiot."

"No, just make some effort. Buy her stuff. Take her out to eat. Something fun. Get to know her, Nate."

Nathan gulped, then belched. "Yeah. Yeah. I c'n do that, Pickles." He tried to sit up, but couldn't. "Fuck, I'm drunk. Mind if I just... stay here?"

"Well, it's not like I can move ya."

Nathan missed the sarcasm and closed his eyes. "Good point." He was snoring peacefully within a minute or so.

Pickles stared at the sleeping man for a long while. _Gawd, that was... weird._ He'd never had a conversation with Nathan Explosion on that level before, where the other man had come to him with such an intimate problem. He _did_ appreciate the thought, but it still seemed strange. _Well, I'm gonna help ya get laid, Nathan. It's best for you and best for all of us._

He turned around and went back to work on his drumming part, slipping on headphones and listening to Snakes 'n' Barrels. From time to time he flipped on a recording of the recording of Nathan's "Cockblocker Killfest". He'd surreptitiously taped it with his Dethphone, and now he listened to Nathan's singing, just to get the rhythm down. If Nathan changed anything, he'd have to work with that, but these were just ideas. The fingers of his other hand would sometimes tap out a rhythm as he wrote as he imagined how the drums would go.

He had to have worked for a couple hours, tapping and writing and banging his head (quietly) to Snakes 'n' Barrels, and so when he finally turned around and looked at his bed, flexing the fingers of his aching, cramped hand, he was surprised to find that Nathan had woken up and left in the meantime. _Damn, and here I was thinking I'd have to cuddle up to him tonight. Well, at least he would have been warm._

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Nathan wandered the halls, not really knowing where he was going or what he was doing. He was a big guy and it took a lot of alcohol to incapacitate him entirely. He'd have to drink much, much more than he already had to knock out his motor functions or make him sleep like the dead.

So he wandered.

Skwisgaar passed him in the hall, playing his guitar and muttering to himself in Swedish. Then he stopped and gripped Nathan's shoulder, a huge smile spreading over his face. "Nathan! Yours love song, whiles I am still agreeink with Pickles that love songs are not metal, will be totally cool and brutal and awesomes. I swears this to yous by Slepnir's four balls."

Nathan straightened up and looked up at Skwisgaar, right in the eye. The Swede's normally pale face was flushed pink; his eyes were sparkling. "What the... that's great." He squinted. "Why are you so happy?"

"Because Pickles says everyone is gonna starts making-ups when they hears us play our song. That it will cause them to go crazy with lusts and put their you-know-whats insides of each other like the overheated weasels." Skwisgaar licked his full lips. "Right in fronts of us."

Nathan blinked. Damn, he hadn't thought about that possibility. Had they ever had a mass orgy at one of their concerts? He'd certainly never noticed it if they had. "Oh wow. I hadn't considered that."

"_Ja._ Brilliants, eh?" The Swede hugged him. "Yous brilliant, Nathan. Never change." Then he darted off, fingers eagerly working up and down the frets.

"Well, now I feel better." He kept walking and went to Toki's room. He paused before knocking, then pressed his ear to the door. Was that... _bubble-gum pop_ he heard?

He knocked. The bubble-gum crap shut off immediately. Toki opened the door.

"Nathans. Hi," Toki said. "What yous wanting?"

"Well..." Why was he asking everyone for sex advice now? It was a bit embarrassing. "Toki, how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Manage to be brutal but... yet... not. It's amazing, it really is."

Toki got a shifty look on his face. His eyes darted back and forth. "Yous know I only care about bein' dark and brutal, Nathans."

"Oh, come on, Toki. I've seen your CD collection. You've got the Beatles and Devo and a bunch of experimental 70's and 80's crap that no one else remembers. You've got acoustic _lute_ music, for Sabbath's sake."

"I plays the lute, Nathans."

"Yeah, and the fiddle, and the flute, and the piano... Toki, this song of ours, it needs something special. It needs to be brutal, but... I dunno, tender? Like a steak. Bloody and raw, but tender and delicious. I want you to provide that."

"But I's the rhythm guitarist. How we supposed to pull this off live? I can't not plays the guitar." Toki's head drooped. "Although Skwisgaar woulds probably be happy if I did."

"Screw that, Skwisgaar is as happy about this as anyone else. He thinks there's gonna be a mass orgy when we play this thing."

"Murderface isn't happy."

"Screw him. We're doing this thing, Toki. I want you to be a part of it." He clapped Toki on the shoulder. "This is _our_ song."

"I... okays. I'll be dark and brutal, but tender and bloodied. All at once. I guess I digs my keyboard outta my closet..." The younger man sighed and scratched his head, looking bewildered.

"Toki?"

"Yeah, Nathans?"

"Can I... can I come in and ask you something else?"

"Yeah." Toki stepped aside and let Nathan come in his room.

The younger man gestured for Nathan to have a seat on his neatly-made bed. Nathan did so, brushing Toki's Deddybear aside. He squeezed the little stuffed animal gently before looking up at Toki.

"What yous wanting to talk about, Nathans?" Toki gazed down at him with concern. "Yous not looking so good."

"That's 'cause I'm drunk."

"Oh."

_Here goes nothin'._ He took a deep breath. "Toki... how do you... how do you treat the girls, the groupies? You're so... nice."

Toki seemed stunned by the question. "Well... I just... be nice to them. Ask them what they wants... eat candy with 'em. Watch movies and listen to music. It's fun, Nathan."

"Huh." He'd never done anything like that with groupies before. _But Angélique's not a groupie, so I shouldn't treat her like one._ His mind was made up. "I'm gonna do it." He got up and headed for the door.

"Do what, Nathan?"

"Go on a date."

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

It was his first date in a while, so Nathan took some time off to decide what he'd wear. That seemed to be important for a lot of people. A grubby, sweat-stained t-shirt and battered jeans were too informal, but a suit like the one he'd worn to the _Blood Ocean_ premiere felt too formal. And he'd burned the sissy pastel outfits that Rebecca had given him.

Finally he struck a compromise between formal and informal, and chose his newest part of jeans (dark blue, and still very crisp) and a dark grey, button-down, long-sleeved dress shirt. He shined and polished his boots and combed his hair. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he was amazed as to the effort he'd made.

Screwing up his nerve, he went to where the Dethklok offices were. Ofdensen had his bureaucratic lair up there, and he knew that Angélique was working somewhere up there, too.

He was halfway there when he realized that he should be bringing her flowers, because girls liked smelly, pretty crap like that, so when he reached the cubicle area, he grabbed some cut flowers out of a decorative display and carried them along, the stems still dripping water from the vase.

Nathan went to Ofdensen's office first. He didn't bother knocking on the door, just barged right in. "Ofdensen," he said, "where's Angélique?"

Ofdensen stared at him, the look of alarm and surprise gradually fading. "Miss Eluveitie is working. I can page her, if you want..." He sniffed. "Are you wearing... aftershave? And cologne?"

"Um, no. I mean, yes."

Ofdensen sighed and thumbed the button for his office intercom. "Miss Eluveitie, please report to my office ASAP." He thumbed it off. "There. Are you... planning something that I should know about?"

"Uh, I'm going on a date. Yeah." He thrust out the flowers. "These are for her."

"You stole those from a floral arrangement here, Nathan."

"Yeah but they're for her."

Ofdensen sighed. "Whatever."

Angélique walked in, dressed in a dark violet business suit. Her blonde hair was done up with staid, plain hair barrettes. Her eyes went from Nathan to Ofdensen. She smiled. "Nathan! Hello."

Nathan felt as if he was going insane. _Don't get a hard-on, don't get a hard-on, don'tgetahard-on. What are you, a teenager again? Take yourself in hand! NO, DON'T..._

He stared at her and avoided getting aroused by sheer force of willpower alone. "I, uh, I..." His hands were shaking and his palms were greasy with sweat. The flowers were shaking so hard that he was surprised their petals hadn't fallen off. Finally he shoved them at her. "Here."

She flinched, then took the flowers. "Oh, thank you, Nathan. It's very sweet." She sniffed them delicately. "I'll have to put these in my cubicle."

"And I... um, before you go and... put them, y'know, I--" Nathan stood there and sweated some more for a while. It felt like Ofdensen's eyes were boring through his body. "I, um... Ofdensen, can you get the hell out of here for one moment and stop staring at me?"

Ofdensen left. Angélique looked disturbed. "Nathan," she said softly, "it's okay." She smiled. "You look really nice today. Are you dressed up for an event?"

"Yeah. I wanna date you." There, it was out. He'd said it. _Whew_.

Those tilted grey eyes widened slightly. "Oh, well. You mean, tonight?"

"Yeah, like right now. I was thinking... maybe Dimmu Burger or--" _Dimmu Burger's a fucking fast-food joint, you idiot!_ "--or maybe Burzum's or something. Wherever. Maybe?"

"Burzum's would be good. Did you want to go now?"

"Yeah, if you can."

Her smile widened. "I'm sure Charles wouldn't mind. Let's go."

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

So they went to Burzum's. Angélique got the salad special and Nathan got meatballs and pasta, with extra breadsticks.

"So... uhm." Nathan was finding it hard to talk to a person who wasn't a member of Dethklok or involved with Dethklok in a real way. He was especially finding it hard to talk to a woman. Women were pretty non-brutal, except for the fact that they bled for a week without dying and could crap babies out their cooches. That was pretty awesome, he supposed, but it still didn't make them any easier to talk to.

She was looking at him hopefully, chewing on a bite of iceberg lettuce and shredded carrot. "Yes?"

"How did you... how did you get into being a secretary?" He found himself actually wanting to know why. It seemed like such a boring, non-brutal job that he couldn't comprehend as to why anyone would want it.

She looked thoughtful. "Well, I've always been a neat person. I like helping people. I guess I like being useful. I like the analytical and organizational skills that the job requires. And I'm good at what I do... I guess like how you're good at what you do, Nathan. Each of us fits our job descriptions perfectly." She laughed softly. "I mean, I'm not brutal, I can't get up on a stage and sing for thousands of people, but I can write up several memos every day and send them out to thousands of Dethklok employees -- things about new health care policies, child-care benefits, insurance claims, things like that."

"I think you're pretty brutal," Nathan said. "I mean, you gored Grishnack in the shin. That's awesome."

She grimaced. "That-- that came from a very dark part of me that I'd like not to have to experience again, Nathan. That wasn't me."

"Yeah it was. Sometimes you need to stand up for yourself and punch some dickhead in the face. Or, I dunno, stab 'em with your heel."

She nodded, looking pensive. "Perhaps." Taking another bite of her salad, she asked, "Just out of curiosity, do you play any musical instruments?"

He swirled some spaghetti onto his fork and popped it into his mouth before answering. "Uh, I can play the guitar and the bass guitar, but in all honesty I'm better at singing."

"I'd like to hear you play them, someday." A pause, then: "Maybe you could teach me?"

He blinked. No one had ever asked him to teach them to play an instrument or anything like that before. He felt privileged. "Yeah, maybe." He grinned. "I'll teach you to be metal and brutal."

She laughed, lips red with tomato juice. "Maybe so, Nathan."

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

When Nathan took Angélique back to the Dethklok Level Three Employees' apartment complex, dropped her off there, and returned to the Mordhaus lounge, he found Pickles waiting up for him.

Pickles had been dozing on the couch, but he woke up when he heard Nathan's heavy tread. He beamed at Nathan in a boozy, friendly sort of way. "So, Nathan, how'd it go?"

"Good, actually." He slumped down beside Pickles and leaned his head back. "We talked."

Pickles leaned forward, interlaced his fingers together and rested his hands on his knees. "Talking. Yeah." He looked over at Nathan and grinned. "Any kissin'? How about makin' out?"

Nathan suddenly felt worried. He had tried to have the date be as normal as possible for him and Angélique; had he fucked up, though, and just hadn't realized it? Damn, this was making his head hurt. Or maybe it was the alcohol he had drunk earlier. Maybe both. Dating and beer were apparently a bad combination. "Uh, I gave her a good-night kiss."

A ring-studded eyebrow went up, as did a corner of the drummer's thin, mustachioed mouth. "On the kisser?" He tapped his lips with a nicotine-stained fingertip.

"That's a bit... forward." Nathan tapped the top of his forehead. "Right here."

"Damn, the _forehead?_ That's like, how you kiss your 5-year-old niece, Nathan, not a girl you want to get it on with. That's not passionate!"

"WELL UNLIKE _SOME_ PEOPLE HERE, I DON'T WANT TO _TERRIFY_ HER ON THE FIRST DATE!" Nathan yelled. His face felt like it was flaming red, but he was too angry to care.

Pickles held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Dude, dude, cool it. I get you. You don't want me prying into something that's none of my business, that's fine." He lowered his hands to his knees with a gentle slapping sound and turned away. "I understand. I just want what's best for you, Nathan. And that 'what's best' seems to entail having some sex with this girl."

Nathan's lip curled. "So you just want me to fuck her hard and fast and then never see her again, just like any old groupie? Fuck that! She's my _muse_, Pickles. The muse of the bloody metal love song!"

Pickles blinked, belatedly beginning to wonder if Murderface had been right. This was a bit disturbing. He lit himself another cigarette to calm his nerves.

Suddenly the tension went out of Nathan's frame, and he slumped forward and let his head slid into his hands. He crouched there, forearms and elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. His fingers pushed through his black hair as if trying to hold it back. "Look," he said tiredly, "I just need time, that's all. I'm... going through a lot of shit now. With Rebecca being back..."

Pickles nearly choked on his cigarette. "Wh--what? _What?_ Run that by me again, Nate, 'cause all I saw was a blur as that fucker shot past me in a little clown car, screamin' some shit about doin' cocaine."

"Rebecca. Is. Out. Of. Her. Coma."

Pickles shuddered. Dire news, indeed. No wonder Ofdensen and Nathan had been keeping it from the rest of the band; they'd have a riot on their hands. Murderface would have probably popped some caps in _someone_'s ass, anyway. "And she's where, now?"

"Not here. Charles sent her packin'."

"That's a fuckin' relief." Pickles wiped the sweat off his high, bald forehead. "And you didn't see her before she left?"

"What? Hell, no. You think I care about that bitch? She can go die in a fire, for all I care." Nathan's face hardened into a scowl.

They both heard Skwisgaar before they saw him, but suddenly a mass of blond hair and flailing limbs hit them. Skwisgaar was hugging them both. He was warm and smelled of beer and sweat. Skwisgaar pressed down in between Pickles and Nathan, and his guitar bumped against their bodies like a small child fighting to stay seated on its father's lap, all sharp, hard little elbows and knees. Skwisgaar stroked his fingers up and down the frets, as if soothing the instrument. He was grinning from ear to ear.

"Nathan, I finish bass _and_ guitar work for you," he said proudly.

"Let's hear the guitar stuff," Nathan said.

Skwisgaar didn't plug the guitar in, but just played through it. It was good; dangerous and epic in sound, yet there was a little, tender, almost delicate, part where Nathan would sing the lines about having sex on the pile of severed heads. It was fast and complicated enough to sound like Dethklok but melodic enough to actually be quite beautiful.

"Crap, Skwis, I think you outdid yourself, there," Pickles said, whistling.

Nathan nodded solemnly. "You rose to the occasion, you horny fucker." Skwisgaar's grin widened so much that Nathan worried that the Swede's face would split in half.

"Now, Skwisgaar, I don't want you getting asshurt over this," Nathan started, "but I asked Toki to take out his keyboard and write something special for this song."

The grin slid off Skwisgaar's face like fresh food slipping off a tipped-over plate. "Keyboards? Toki writing something? _Pfft!_"

"It's not like he's writing his own guitar part or something. It's just something extra. I wanted this to be different than our other stuff," Nathan retorted. "He's not going to be competing with you."

"I's hoping not," Skwisgaar said, only barely sounding mollified.

"Good," Nathan said in a voice that brooked no argument. "Now play that again. I want to tape it and give it to Toki."

Skwisgaar looked outraged again. "Whats?! Yous givink my musics to him--"

"We need a coherent vision for the song, Skwisgaar," Nathan said. "It can't sound like twenty different things playing all at once. Now just do it. Trust me on this. Or you aren't going to see a bunch of naked orgies at our next show."

That solved it for Skwisgaar. He played the guitar section over again while Nathan recorded it into his PDA.

"Thanks," Nathan said when Skwisgaar was done. He turned the PDA off, and clipped it onto his belt again.

Unbeknowst to any of them, Murderface was around the corner, listening. He fumed. Skwisgaar was being a total pussy, and that worried him. When the Swede wasn't bitching about something Toki was supposed to do or not supposed to do, then you _knew_ something was fucked-up, and that something was the band dynamic because of this damn song.

_What I need to do is what I do best. Pit people against each other._ Somehow he had to find a way to turn Angélique against Nathan, Pickles against Nathan, and Skwisgaar against both Toki _and_ Nathan. Maybe if he felt ambitious he could try to turn Ofdensen against Nathan, but that would be a hard sell, even for Murderface.

Of course, if he did this and managed to pull it off successfully, he'd have effectively destroyed Dethklok from within, but the way Murderface saw it, Dethklok was already dead. Nathan had shot it between the eyes with a .22 and blown its fuckin' head clear off; all Murderface was doing was shoveling the once-proud and beautiful body up and dumping it in a shallow, unmarked grave. But if Murderface had his way, Dethklok could at least go out spectacularly. Everyone would turn against Nathan, and then finally, Murderface could come in and remind Nathan Explosion just who his true friends really were; namely, William Murderface. Of course, Nathan would probably then have to kill him when he learned what Murderface had done to him, but Murderface didn't mind. It seemed appropriate to die a violent, horrible death at the hands of his best friend, Nathan Explosion, after Murderface had willfully destroyed Nathan's life for him. Murderface grinned. There was even, dare he think it, a sort of _poetry_ in it.

_Yes, that's what I'll do. I'll save those bastards from their own miserable, stupid selves, and of course they'll hate me for it, because what else can they do? Ungrateful sons of bitches. But I'll show them all in the end that I was right and they were wrong. William Murderface is gonna be the best fuckin' friend they ever had, dammit._

With that in mind, he snuck back to his bedroom, to further lay out his plan of destruction.

_**To be continued...**_


	5. Iago Murderface, murderface, murderface

_**Chapter Five: Iago Murderface, murderface, murderface**_

It was rehearsal day, and everyone was there -- except for William Murderface.

"Where the _hell_ is he?" Nathan growled. He stalked over to the PA system and bellowed into it, "WILLIAM MURDERFACE! GET DOWN HERE OR SO HELP ME RHOADS, I WILL _END_ YOU!"

"He is acting like a totallies unprofessional professional, you knows?" Skwisgaar said, tuning his guitar. Toki nodded in response, but was too busy setting up his keyboards to say something.

Nathan looked to Pickles, who was sitting behind his drum kit. "iYou're/i ready, at least," he said in the tone of a man who sincerely wishes that nothing else will go wrong today, because if it does he is very liable to kill something. Or someone. Perhaps even several someones.

Pickles saluted him with his drumsticks. "Ready 'n' waitin', Nate."

Nathan nodded, and cracked a weak grin.

They all waited in silence for a while, waiting for Murderface. When the bassist didn't show up, Nathan swore loudly, stalked over to a stand of extra guitars and basses, grabbed a bass off the stand, and stalked back to his microphone. He plugged the bass in with swift, savage movements, tuned it, then de-tuned it, snapped on the amplifier by kicking it, and then barked, "Count of four. One, two, three, four!"

The band lurched into motion. With Nathan's primal, rage-against-Murderface scream of "FUUUUUCKERS!", the song began.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

She sniffed. Alarm, icy and sharp, shot into her heart and made her freeze, as a fawn hunkers down into the grass and remains still when it catches the scent of a predator.

In Angélique's case, the predator smelled like beer, sweat, bile, and old socks.

"Hey there." The voice was sharp and nasal, marred with the distinct accent of a slurring lisp.

She looked up. William Murderface stood slouched in the doorway of her office, hands on the doorframe.

"Mr. Murderface," she said with polite caution. "How can I help you?" There was a look in his eyes that she did not like, but as he didn't come any closer, and he was one of Nathan's friends, she waited patiently and willed herself to calm down. _You're safe here, Angélique. Nathan promised he'd keep you safe. _

Her heart swelled with emotion as she thought of Nathan. She was starting to love him, in her way; love the way he kissed her on the forehead after each date, love the sleek sway of his hair, his remarkably graceful and agile tread, the shy way he looked at her when they were out together. She was free of Grishnack, working hard, in love, and life couldn't be better for her...

Murderface smiled, revealing stained, crooked teeth with a prominent gap in between the two upper incisors. "You must be the girl who'sch dating Nathan," he said.

Confused, she replied, "Yes, yes, that's right." Something was happening here, something she did not understand, and what Angélique did not understand tended to frighten her.

Like a fawn in the grass, she lay and waited, too terrified to move.

"Nathan told me about you," he said. "You're pretty."

"Well, thank you very much." Her words were as fake as their accompanying smile. Her heart was pounding; her palms were slick and hot with sweat.

"There'sch just one thing." Murderface's smile was even uglier than the rest of him. "Nathan'sch a bit dischappointed in you."

Angélique felt as if her heart had stopped. Her body felt cold all over. For a while her mouth could not form any words.

"He wasch talking to me about you. Actually, he wasch talking to all of usch about you. Now, don't worry, becausche you're not a louschy lay -- he would have told usch if you were -- but he'sch a bit dischappointed that you haven't put out for him." His grin widened. "He told usch about it, you know. We had a good laugh over it one evening in the hot tub. You're a very funny perschon, you know, you schared little rabbit, you."

"What?" Tears were forming in her eyes. She felt she was being slapped all over again. Her cheeks burned and stung.

"He really doesch think you're hilariousch... although the whole schex thing is a bitch. Well, what do you think a guy like Nate expectsch? He'sch gotten it from scho many women that he expectsch his girlsch to be schlutsch." Murderface sounded as if this was something that should be obvious to her. "He'sch not intereschted in schome shchrinking violet who needsch to be pampered and coddled and taken here and given that all the damn time! You'd better give him what he wantsch, girly, or you'll get dumped."

She turned away. "Please leave."

"Juscht a word of warning for your own good. You'd better give him what--"

"SHUT UP!" That hate and rage, long suppressed, that she had felt towards Grishnack boiled up inside her like some vile lava, spewing forth. She grabbed up her heavy-duty stapler and hurled it at Murderface.

Murderface yelped and ducked, hands flying into position over his messy, curly hair. The stapler slammed into the door-frame right beside Murderface's head with a bang loud enough to sound like a gunshot, knocking loose ragged chips of wood. It clunked to the carpet, leaving behind a nasty scar of raw wood where it had hit the doorframe.

Murderface stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment, then turned and ran before she could throw anything more at him. Which was a good thing, because if he had set one foot inside her office, she would have attacked him. She felt that angry; angry enough to jump off her staid little office chair, angry enough to scream at the top of her lungs, angry enough to destroy the whole world and Dethklok along with it.

But then the anger faded, to be replaced by her old familiar companions: fear and sorrow. Was that all that Nathan really wanted from her? Was he really talking about her with his friends, laughing about her, laughing _at_ her? Was she nothing but a bad joke to him, a disappointment?

_Ask him. Just go ahead and ask him,_ an inner voice of reason said to the roiling tumult of emotions inside her, but she was far too upset to pay that voice any heed now. She put her head in her hands, shoved the paperwork that was on her desk aside, laid her head down, and wept.

"Miss Eluveitie?" Ofdensen's sharp voice. She looked up through her tears and saw him standing where Murderface had been just a few minutes ago. His mouth was twisted in a stern frown. "What's going on? What was that noise, and why did I see William Murderface running down the hall like a banshee is after him?"

Angélique's heart twisted in terror. She knew that Ofdensen was more than he seemed; more than just a paper-pusher. She also knew that if she lied to him, things would go even worse for her. Like Grishnack, he had a talent for sniffing out deception.

"I -- I -- Murderface came here." Through her sobs, she pushed on, staring at her desk, not even able to look Ofdensen in the eyes. "He -- he said that Nathan... that Nathan laughed about me to the others... that I wasn't -- was-- e-enough of a -- slut--" The shuddering sobs she had been trying to hold back burst out all over again. "And I threw the stapler at him. I'm sorry..."

"Miss Eluveitie, we don't _throw_ things at members of Dethklok, even if they do anger or upset us!" Ofdensen snapped. If his voice had been sharp before, now it was about as honed as a surgical scalpel. "Do you understand?" He picked up the stapler. "This is heavy and could have hurt William severely."

"Yes. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She pressed a hand to her running nose, shaking all over.

There was silence for a while, while Angélique attempted to control her heaving stomach.

When Ofdensen spoke again, his voice was calmer, even gentle. "Well, aside from the doorframe, there's no permanent harm done. You're clearly upset, so I think you should take the day off, go back to your apartments and rest. I'm not going to discipline you this time for this. Just... take it easy."

She stared up at him with stricken eyes, needing comfort, reassurance. Everything was crumbling to dust and ashes around her; the safety and love that Nathan had offered her, the work and home she cherished so much... "Is it true? Do they laugh about me?"

For a moment, something that might have been sadness flickered across Ofdensen's face, and then was gone. "I... I've not seen or heard anything of that sort going on, Miss Eluveitie. William can be very manipulative. I wouldn't take his words to heart. And... well, I shouldn't be the one to tell you this, but Nathan wrote a song for you. Unless I'm mistaken, they're practicing it right now. Not that you'd be allowed in to listen to it, of course, but..." He sighed. "Just go home and rest. You'll feel better for it."

When he had left, she numbly shut off her computer, tidied up her desk out of sheer habit, and then left, locking her office's door behind her. Tears were still running down her face as she walked back to her apartments across the office courtyard.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Having worked his mischief with Angélique, Murderface departed to cast the same spell with Toki.

Deftly returning to Mordhaus and managing to avoid all his fellow band members, Murderface made his way to Toki's room, hoping that Toki would actually be there.

He knocked on the door, and sure enough, Toki was there. _Practice time must be over for the day,_ Murderface thought.

"I'm comings," Toki said from inside the room. Seconds later, the door opened. Toki's eyes widened. "Murderface! Yous missed our practice! Nathans was sooo angry..."

"Yeah, yeah, I bet he wasch. Not that I care." Murderface crossed his arms over his chest. "Can I come in for a minute, Toki? I know schomething I think you'd want to hear."

"Yeah, okay." Ever trusting, Toki swung the door wide open.

Murderface actually felt a pang of conscience strike him as he stepped inside Toki's room. Despite a harsh upbringing that by all logic should have crushed any capacity for love, trust, or credulity out of Toki's soul from an early age, the young Norwegian was still a very trusting and kindly individual... one of the nicest people Murderface had ever known, in fact. Looking at him, Murderface felt like a murderer, like a dirty old man who was going to be brutally killing something innocent and irreplaceable.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself for his task. _You know this is necessary. Necessary for Nathan. That's who you're doing it for. So Nathan can realize what an idiot he is. This is all his fault, anyway._

"Scho," he began, "you guys practiced today, huh, Toki? How'd it go?"

"Oh, great!" Toki said happily. He got up on his bed and bounced on it. "I played the keyboards _and_ the guitar -- I's gettings really good at switching them in the middles of the song, you know -- and Nathan played the bass, and--"

"What? What? Nathan played the bassch?" A stab of betrayal struck Murderface in the heart. Or the balls. Whichever was more painful. "That'sch _MY_ inschtrument!"

Toki flopped down onto his rump, bounced once, and shrugged. "Yous weren't there. Nathan finally just say 'Fuck it!' and grab one of yours basses and went to the city on it, as you say in English... hey, you wants some candy?"

"Hell no." Murderface slumped against the wall and pressed a clammy palm to his forehead. "Nathan alwaysch _schucked_ on the bassch, how the hell doesch he think he'sch gonna be able to do thisch schong on it?"

"Yous should have heard him! He was like a demons on that thing! I's think he say he was powered by anger at yous or something. Or maybe he was just high, I dunno." Toki got some candy for himself and munched on it. "Whatever it was, he was good. Real good. We probably not mix him out of the CD, at least."

"That'sch juscht _great_," Murderface muttered. If he had had second thoughts about hurting Nathan through Toki and Skwisgaar, they were utterly and completely gone by now. _That BASTARD._ "That's wonderful, Toki." He managed to smile. "How'sch Schkwischgaar taking your playing the keyboardsch for thisch schong?"

"Oh, good. He not yells about it or anything."

"That'sch 'cuz you're not competing with him, finally."

Toki looked confused. "But I still play the rhythm for this one."

"Yeah, but you're doin' keyboardsch. Schomethin' new. Who'sch idea wasch that?"

"Nathan. 'Do somethings different, Toki', he says."

"Nathan, huh? You think Schkwischgaar might not have put him up to that? Take schome of the schpotlight off your guitar playing?"

Toki shrugged. "Spotlight is never on me. Besides, we all know Skwisgaar's the best."

Murderface floundered for a moment, then decided to take the opposite tack. "Well, do you feel like it putsch too _much_ of a schpotlight on you, then?"

Toki looked confused again. "How?"

"Well, you're doin' schomething new, and that alwaysch grabsch people'sch attention. You'd better watch out, you could make Schkwischgaar jealousch all over again."

Now Toki looked worried. "But Skwis didn't say anything about it..."

"Well, why would he? But truscht me, it'sch there. Building in him. Eatin' away at him. And eventually that jealouschy over lil' Toki Wartooth, guitarist AND keyboardist extraordinary, is gonna explode like a great big fuckin' zit. You _know_ how he isch." Murderface grinned at the look of dismay on Toki's face. "Just imagine that; the stinking, rancid pussch that is Skwischgaar'sch anger sprayin' everywhere! _Brutal!_"

Toki did not look in the least bit amused by the thought. In fact, he looked hurt and afraid. "Yous think? But I don't wants Skwisgaar to be angries with me!"

"Maybe you'd better schtep outta the schpotlight, then."

"Maybe sos," Toki said softly. He had stopped munching his candy, and in fact looked down into the candy bowl with a sickened expression. He set the candy aside onto his dresser. "I... I needs to think about this all, Murderface. Can yous..."

"Go? Yeah. Schee ya around, kid." Murderface let himself out.

Stifling his guilt, he snuck over to Skwisgaar's room. _Mission accomplished with Angel-bitch and Toki. Now for Skwisgaar._

He found the Swede curled up next to an octegenarian woman who looked disturbingly like Murderface's grandmother Stella. Skwisgaar was smiling contentedly, absent-mindedly stroking the old lady's blued perm. He looked up and saw Murderface staring at him. "Oh, Murderface! Wanna joins the party?" Skwisgaar looked a little drunk.

Murderface felt like throwing up. "Uh, NO." He waved a hand. "Can you schend the old woman on outta here for a moment? I feel like I need to talk with you. Like, really need to talk."

Skwisgaar shrugged his bony shoulders. "Fines, fines. Emma, why don't yous leave us boys to talks for a while, eh?"

She giggled coquettishly. "Anything for you, you sweet young man!" She gave him a disturbingly grandma-like smooch on the cheek. Skwisgaar blushed, but still gestured for her to go. The old woman got up with surprising agility, slipped on an old bathrobe of Skwisgaar's, and walked out, leaving Murderface and Skwisgaar alone together.

Skwisgaar shrugged when Murderface looked at him. "Actuallys, she is not a groupie, but a new addition to the kitchens staff. She makes excellent pie." He scooted up onto one side of the bed, completely naked and not caring about it. "Haves a seat, Murderface." He patted the opposite side of the bed with one long-fingered hand.

Murderface sat. "Scho how'd practice go today?"

"Good, good." The younger man ran a hand through his mussed blond hair, trying to straighten it and push it out of his face. "You was not there. Actually I's think that makes it go better, to be honest. So Nathan plays your basses for you." Skwisgaar nodded approvingly. "He was good. Ons fire, you know."

"Huh. Better than me?"

"_Pffft!_ Oh, ways better!"

"I schee. How about Toki and his keyboardsch?"

"Oh, he's..." Skwisgaar winced slightly. "He's good, you know. Different. Good. Yeah." Skwisgaar got up, still as naked as the day he was born. "Yous wanting a beer or something, Murderface? I has a cooler in here, full of good foreign beers."

"Yeah, get me a whatever."

"One whatevers coming up." Skwisgaar got up and walked over to a white cooler against the opposite wall. He bent down (Murderface quickly averted his gaze from the Swede's fully revealed rump), popped the cooler open, and took out some beers. Skwisgaar handed a glass long-neck to Murderface and snapped the top off his own before sitting back down.

"But as I's saying, he's good," Skwisgaar said. "Not as good as me on the guitars, but he's good on his keyboards. Nathans was right; it is different, in a good ways. Stills metal, and that what counts."

"Huh. You don't think that Toki'll get too much of the schpotlight for thisch schong?"

Skwisgaar swigged his beer and looked sidelong at Murderface. "How?"

"'Causche you know how people are. You know how our fansch are. When they schee schomething different -- Toki on keyboardsch, for example -- they go apeschit, and seein' Toki on keyboardsch'll definitely do that. They won't schee _you_. You're nothing new."

Skwisgaar frowned. "But I's have a great guitar solos!"

"Scho? You have that every schong! But what the audience is gonna be scheein' and hearin', is Toki on thosche damn keyboardsch and Nathan on hisch--" Murderface suddenly swallowed a wave of bitter bile-- "fuckin' bassch. You and me, pal, we'll be left behind in the fuckin' duscht. You'd better believe it."

Skwisgaar's frown deepened, and a dark look entered his blue eyes. At that moment, Murderface knew he had him. _Perfect._ He cracked open his own beer, and enjoyed the satisfying hissing sound. He took a drink.

"I's guessing I'd better believes it," Skwisgaar said unhappily. "What yous think I should do?"

"Tell Nathan about it. Tell 'im you don't want Toki schtealing what'sch rightfully yoursch -- _your_ schpotlight. And tell Nathan to quit being schuch a fuckin' attention whore."

Skwisgaar nodded and drained his beer. "I's tell him that, Murderface. Don'ts worry."

Resisting the urge to say "Excellent!", Murderface nodded solemnly, clapped the brooding Swede on the shoulder, thanked him for the beer, and wished him a nice day. Skwisgaar merely nodded to all this, clearly deep in thought.

Again, Murderface let himself out, and went to his own room. The seeds of chaos had been sown, and Nathan was soon to be reaping a bitter harvest of weeds. _You hoed the rows yourself, Nate; you have no one to blame but your own damn self. I hope you'll see that, someday._

_**To be continued...**_

**Author's Notes:** Nathan can play the bass because Peter Steele plays bass. And that is sexy. Nathan + Electric Bass More Sexiness Than Is Allowable By Law. Very simple mathematics. ;)


	6. Reconciliation By Any Other Name

_**Chapter Six: Reconciliation By Any Other Name... Would Be Just As Painful**_

Nathan frowned at his Dethphone. "Huh. Angélique just sent me a text message. Says our date's off for tonight." He sighed and clipped his phone back onto his belt. "Says she's not feelin' good."

Pickles lit up a joint. "That ain't good. Hey, Nate, you notice anything else unusual lately?"

Nathan snorted. "Other than Murderface never coming to practice sessions?"

"Toki and Skwisgaar... there's something wrong." Pickles looked both worried and frustrated. He finally stubbed the joint out in a nearby ashtray, took in some deep breaths of (relatively) smoke-free air, and then said, "Does it seem like they argue less?"

Nathan slowly nodded. "Seems like they hang out less." He shrugged his broad shoulders, chin dimpling as he frowned. "Maybe they're sick of each other. Just like Murderface is sick of me."

"Yeah, but they seem more... I dunno. Toki is more depressed. He's been takin' a lot of days off for 'grief'. His guitar playing is slower and he hits more wrong notes. Well, more than usual. He doesn't seem to enjoy doing the keyboard thing like he did earlier, you know? And Skwisgaar seems... more aggressive during practice."

"He's always aggressive. That's what we hired him for."

"Yeah, but it's like he's got something to prove, and he's baiting Toki, daring Toki, but Toki's just not pulling out of his shell. Skwis seems angry. I dunno, dude, it's fucked-up."

Nathan grunted. "We need to pull this together." It felt more and more like control of the band's musical direction was slipping out of his hands. It had felt so good, that first practice session without Murderface, where, fueled by anger, he'd grabbed up that bass and just started playing. It had felt like when he had been a teenager with Murderface and they were both playing bass together. He had always known that Murderface was better on the bass than he was (that was an inevitability when the guy could play the damn instrument with just his penis and his left hand), but sometimes, just sometimes, Murderface's confidence would slip, and Nathan's skill with the instrument would suddenly grow. That seemed to happen most often when Nathan was very, very angry or frustrated with Murderface. Secretly, he enjoyed the feeling of being better than Murderface at Murderface's own signature instrument. It didn't happen often, but when it did, he liked it.

Now, though, everything was shot to hell. His date was called off for the night, and even practice was no fun. Hell, he'd tried practicing other songs with the band, and even those were no fun. Toki sounded like crap and seemed like he was half-asleep most of the time, Skwisgaar was like an angry Fury during practice and quietly sullen before and after practice, and Murderface was literally nowhere to be seen, forcing Nathan to take up the bass or have the band go without. The only one who Nathan felt was really playing _with_ him instead of against him was Pickles. He'd never felt before like he depended overmuch on Pickles for anything other than drumming, but now Nathan felt like Pickles was his only friend in Dethklok. And that made for awkward and painful practice sessions.

Finally Nathan admitted, "I dunno what's goin' on, but I need you at my back, Pickles. I mean to find out what the fuck is going on and kill it dead, with extreme brutality." He got up. "It's time for a band meeting."

Pickles checked his wristwatch. "Nate, it's almost twelve. In the morning."

"So? They can damn well come to a band meeting here in the lounge." He went to the intercom and pressed the button for it. "This is Nathan. Band meeting. Now. In the lounge. I mean it." He snapped the intercom off and sat back down. "Now we wait."

Within a half-hour, Toki and Skwisgaar came stumbling into the lounge. Toki was still dressed in pajama pants and Skwisgaar had on a bathrobe. The latter guitarist was fingering his guitar quietly. Neither one of the Scandinavians spoke to each other or even acknowledged each other's presence in any way. That in and of itself was weird.

Nathan frowned. "Where's Murderface? Has anyone seen him lately?"

"No," both Toki and Skwisgaar said at the same time.

Nathan knuckled his forehead. "Dammit."

"Fire him," Pickles said without preamble.

"You're right. You're right." Nathan looked up at his two guitarists. "And you two -- what do you have to say for yourselves? You've been acting like a bunch of assholes."

Toki's shoulders drooped, and he would not meet Nathan's eyes. Skwisgaar's back went stiff as a board and his mouth pressed into a thin, vicious line.

"Where the hells you think yous can say that, hmmm?" the Swede demanded. His fingers did an enraged little flamenco dance over the guitar strings.

Nathan lunged up and grabbed the front of Skwisgaar's robe and hauled him close. "Because I'm the band's leader and because I say so, dickbrains. Now _siddown_." He shoved Skwisgaar into a chair near the couch. "Toki, you too."

Toki obeyed without complaint. His blue eyes were dull and lifeless.

Nathan cracked his knuckles. "Now, we have a problem here, and it's affecting the band, it's affecting our music, and it's affecting my mood. Like, it's pissin' me off. So, what the hell is wrong with the two of you?" He jabbed a black-nailed finger at Toki. "You, Toki, what's your problem? The first practice session we had for _Cockblocker Killfest_, you were rockin' that fuckin' keyboard. Hell, you almost pushed it over more than once! Now what the hell happened after that? It's like you don't give a shit all of a sudden. And your guitar playing sucks, too."

"Likes it doesn't already sucks?" Skwisgaar muttered. Nathan and Pickles silenced the Swede with a combined double-death-glare, but Toki only hunched down and said nothing. He had a beaten, defeated look on his face. His skin was the color of rancid milk; his forehead was dotted with beads of cold sweat.

Nathan walked over and knelt down in front of Toki, realizing that the young man was shrinking back into himself mentally, just like when his parents had visited. A different tactic was needed here; even Nathan was smart enough to realize that.

He took Toki's hand in his own and rubbed the back of it with his thumb, doing slow semi-circles across the skin. It felt cold -- too cold.

"Toki, I know you're afraid right now, I know you've been feeling like crap," Nathan said in his most soothing voice. Toki slowly nodded and began to sniffle. "But I don't know _why_. I need to know why. Tell me, Toki. Please."

"I's -- I's --" Toki made a choking sound, then pressed on: "I's just don't wanna steal the spotlights from Skwisgaar and makes him mad! And then he explodes everywhere and dies 'cuz I made him mad!" He twisted around and shot an anguished look at Skwisgaar, who was staring at him, open-mouthed. "I HATES YOU, SKWISGAAR! DON'T EVER DIE!"

Skwisgaar blinked. He had stopped playing his guitar entirely. _"Dumma, dumma Toki. Jag kommer inte att explodera! Eller dö! Eller dö av att explodera!"_ he said harshly. But all the same, he came over and patted Toki awkwardly on the shoulder. Toki sobbed, grabbed Skwisgaar's hand in a death grip, and wept snot and tears all over it. Skwisgaar looked both disgusted and disturbed, but he let Toki cling to his hand all the same.

"Toki, why do you think playing the keyboards would steal the spotlight from Skwisgaar?" Pickles asked.

"Yeah, we all knows I'm better than yous, Toki," Skwisgaar said soothingly. He patted Toki's back with his free hand. "Yous don't need to worry about that."

"But Murder--" Toki gulped and shut up immediately.

"What?" Nathan growled. "Murderface said what?"

Toki's eyes darted back and forth. He looked trapped. "I's -- I's not saying anythings."

"Oh, yeah you are. Come on, Toki. Spill it. We need to know."

Toki began to pant, his head twitching back and forth in sharp, spastic motions. His face was even sweatier than before and his eyes were wide and pale.

Pickles sat up. "Dude, I think he's really freakin' out here."

Skwisgaar suddenly slipped off his guitar, spun Toki around, and hugged him tight. Toki whimpered and clung to the back of Skwisgaar's robe, his fingers digging into the fabric and bunching it up. He pressed his forehead into the spot between Skwisgaar's neck and shoulder and mumbled something soft in Norwegian.

"Shh, shush," Skwisgaar said in a hypnotic whisper. _"Toki, Toki, min bror, lugna ner dig. Du är säker, du är säker här. Jag är här för dig. Jag kommer alltid att vara här för dig. Min bror..."_ He rubbed the calloused pads of his fingertips up and down the straight path of Toki's spine, up and down, massaging the bare skin over and over.

At last Toki stopped shaking. Skwisgaar looked over at Nathan and mouthed, "Hug therapy."

"Murderface," Toki whispered finally. "It was Murderface. He tolds me I was gonna steal the spotlight from Skwisgaar and that it would make Skwisgaar so mad he'd die."

Skwisgaar let Toki go and looked at Nathan thoughtfully. "Oh, and he said that yous should stop bein' such a fuckin' attentions whore. With the bass."

Nathan's face screwed itself up into a very unpleasant expression. "What? He called me a _what?_"

"And he told me he thought you were a sell-out, too," Pickles chimed in. "Just so's you know."

Nathan shot to his feet. "What the fuck? I'm gonna _KILL_ Murderface! And I'm gonna play his bass, too!"

He stormed over to the intercom, pounded it, and screamed for Ofdensen. Then they waited.

When Ofdensen appeared, he was bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and dressed in pajama pants and a bedrobe. His glasses were hanging askew from one ear. "What is it?" he asked without preamble.

"We want to talk to Murderface," Nathan growled, arms crossed over his chest. "Either that, or fire him. He's being a massive dickbrain and we're all sick of it."

Ofdensen pinched the bridge of his nose, near his eyes. "Can't you find him and talk to him yourselves?"

"We can't find him," Pickles said. "That's the problem. He's been avoiding us."

"Fine, fine, then. I'll get him."

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Charles took a moment to arm himself. He quickly assembled a crack team of the best, toughest Klokateers they had, and armed them as well. The Klokateers were wearing camouflaged body armor; Charles knew that Murderface wasn't likely to go down without a fight.

_That things should come to this,_ he thought, disgusted. Sure, the band had had its problems in the past: Nathan's obsessive, money-squandering perfectionism, Murderface's quest for spiritual fulfillment, Toki's "dark and brutal" psychotic break with reality. But this felt different. Charles couldn't quite put his finger on it, and when Charles Ofdensen couldn't understand something in its entirety, that frustrated him.

And a frustrated Charles Ofdensen was a dangerous Charles Ofdensen -- even more dangerous than usual.

He first tried to track Murderface through the GPS device inside his Dethphone, only to pick up the Dethphone's now-feeble sensor at the bottom of the lake surrounding the main Mordhaus highway. Either Murderface had jumped to his death and finally ended it all, or he'd tossed his phone away. Charles' money was on the latter, but if he couldn't find Murderface tonight, alive or dead, he'd send a team down there and look for the mangled, bloated body.

As they searched, Charles berated himself. How had he _let_ things get to this? He'd thought that, just as with their other previous spats, disputes, and fights, things would sort themselves out in that serendipitous way that things always seemed to around Dethklok, but not this time. It felt as though there were forces aligned against him, against Dethklok, that he could neither comprehend nor control.

He switched to tracking Murderface through the GPS chip in the bassist's body. All the Dethklok members, as well as Charles himself, had them implanted under their skin, right above their hips. Exquisitely complicated nano-technology ensured that, though the chips would continue to function for up to a year or two after the host's death, their signals were designed to become altered if the host was to expire.

Charles breathed out as the signal revealed that not only was Murderface still on the Mordland property, he was still alive. _Small favors, small favors._

"Now the real fight begins."

Murderface was still in Mordland, but just barely; he was on the secondary highway heading out. _He's not on foot; he's driving out. Smart._ Charles swiftly commandeered an all-terrain murderbuggy and rode out, tires squealing on the dark asphalt.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Murderface was drunk. Drunk, and driving, and screaming "Charlie Parker" at the top of his lungs. He wasn't sure if he was going to die tonight or not. The wind was in his face and it smelled of smoke and cold and pine trees and the deep-shadowed lakes that hid in the stony clefts between the mountains here. Fuck it all, the Rockies were beautiful. Not that he'd ever admit it to anyone else, but he had loved living here. It had given him a freedom that he'd never known before; a freedom he was unlikely to ever experience again.

So why not die tonight, surrounded by the brutal beauty of nature? Tonight was a good night to die.

_All I have to do is edge this thing off the road._ He played with the steering wheel, let the car slew to the side, then yanked it back, laughing hysterically. The sharp, cold wind pulled at his hair and clothing and shrieked in his ears, as if angry to be denied him. He turned a corner too sharply and the car's side kissed the rock with a grating squeal. Murderface tipped his head back and howled like the dogface he was.

The grating honk of a police siren interrupted him mid-howl. "Dammit!" Murderface squinted into the rear-view mirror. A murderbuggy. "Fuck it!" He hammered the steering wheel.

The murderbuggies were a new invention. A nightmare of Nathan Explosion's made out of jagged steel, they were like some unholy metallic hybrid of H. R. Giger's imagination and the vehicles from _The Road Warrior_. They could cover any terrain, they were tough, they were fast, and they were nimble, despite their bulk. They also had built-in PA systems. He squinted into the rear-view again, and saw at the driver's side, a glimpse of a bland pale face and a flapping robe. _Fuckin' Ofdensen. Sheeee-it._

There was a blat of a horn and then the crackle of the murderbuggy's PA system. _"William Murderface,"_ Ofdensen said, voice loud and flat, echoing through the mountains. _"Stop driving immediately. This is an order."_

"Fuck you, asschole!" Murderface screamed into the wind. "How about if I CRASCH?! That'd _schtop_ me!"

Ofdensen, of course, couldn't hear him. _"William, this is your final warning."_ A pause, the death knell. _"Prepare to be boarded and tasered, then."_

They were coming to a straight stretch of roadway flanked on both sides by solid rock. A dark tunnel only lit by the moon above and glowing orange lights bolted into the stone. Murderface realized with a thrill of panic that it was a perfect place for Ofdensen to nail him. He sped up, hearing the _whomp_ing, hollow cough of the murderbuggy's ballista.

There was a solid _thunk_ as the ballista's dart thudded into the back of Murderface's car and hung up there. Then there was the whistle of the wind, the high, desperate, buzzing roar of the engine of Murderface's car, and the rattle of the chain that connected Murderface's car to the murderbuggy behind him, like some horrendous umbilical cord.

Behind him there was a howling squeal of tires and the metal-on-metal grunt as the chain was wound back up into the murderbuggy via a massive gear-driven ratchet. Dull _clonks_ echoed across the highway like gunshots as the Klokateers in the murderbuggy began to put on the brakes and dropped anchors. The murderbuggy was slowing down and it was going to take Murderface with it.

Murderface slammed into the steering wheel (he was not thankful that he had remembered to wear his seat belt, which saved him from flying head-first through the windshield) and promptly broke his nose and busted loose several of his teeth. He grunted, drooling blood over everything. "Schonsch of _bitchesch_!" His eyes darted to the gas meter. Almost empty. His engine sputtered and choked, and he slammed down the gas pedal and only succeeded in spewing up gouts of foul smoke. He was stuck.

He turned around. Ofdensen was standing up, bedrobe flapping in the chill breeze. In sharp contrast to the armored Klokateers, he was bare-chested, like some insane Viking berserker bureaucrat. His dark hair was a windswept mess, hanging over his forehead. His glasses were bug-smeared and hanging askew.

And, Murderface belatedly noted (damn him for getting drunk), Ofdensen had a taser in hand. A big-ass, heavy-duty taser.

Swearing, Murderface reached in the glove compartment for his driving gun, but Ofdensen got him first. "Schiiiit!" The taser jolting him knocked him around as if Nathan was here and had picked him up and was shaking him. His flailing hand grabbed at the door-handle, pulled, and the door creaked outward, spilling his thrashing body onto the cold asphalt, where he flopped around like a fish out of water, the taser cord wrapping around him and slowing his struggles.

Murderface looked up through stinging eyes, and saw Ofdensen walking across the taut chain as if it was a tightrope. "Schow-off," he gritted. He could taste blood in the back of his throat.

"Don't make me taser you again, William," Ofdensen said. He jumped down and landed on the highway, as light on his feet as a cat.

Murderface grunted, resigning himself to his fate. _Everything's fucked up. I should have just killed myself and gone out in a blaze of glory, smeared across the road for everyone to gawk at and snap photos of. And then these fucks'd have to clean up my charred, mangled corpse in the morning. That'd be justice._ He glared at Ofdensen, who leaned down and ripped the taser prongs right out of Murderface's skin. Murderface shrieked.

"There," Ofdensen said, as calm as if he'd done nothing at all. "Now I don't have to taser you again. See how easy that was?" There was nothing at all in his grey eyes; no pity, no mercy, no compassion. "But since I feel like it, I am going to do this." He kicked Murderface in the gut. "That's for fucking up my bread and butter, you asshole. And this--" he turned the taser gun around so he could use the butt as a club-- "is so I can haul you back without you struggling."

The last thing Murderface saw for a while was the moonlight sparkling off the butt of the gun before it smashed down on his head.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

When he saw Murderface again, Nathan had to blink. Their bassist (possibly their soon-to-be _ex-_bassist) was being unceremoniously dragged by the upper arms between two hulking Klokateers, with Ofdensen leading the way. Murderface was hogtied none too gently, gagged, and sporting a large purpled bruise above one eye. His ratty old shirt and battered vest were spotted with blood, and his forearms and face were scraped and bloodied.

"Holy crap," Pickles said, stubbing out his cigarette in an already overflowing ashtray. "You guys beat the shit outta him." He whistled.

Nathan himself was more than a little surprised. Normally the person of a Dethklok member was close to sacrosanct -- they were never, ever manhandled by fans or employees. Ever. But as he looked at Ofdensen, he realized that their manager had orchestrated this brutal treatment of one of Dethklok's own, and as he studied the CFO's pale face with its squinting eyes and tightly-drawn lips, he realized why. Ofdensen was a master at controlling his facial expressions, but Nathan knew when the other man was angry, and this was one of those times when Ofdensen was not just angry, but supremely enraged. Nathan found himself actually feeling a little bit sick to his stomach. _This guy could probably whip all our asses without breaking a sweat._ Shit, he'd always known Ofdensen was dangerous -- it was impossible to be a physical sort of guy like Nathan Explosion and _not_ recognize the potential for danger in another man -- but when he was drunk or frustrated at Ofdensen or just seeing the man as, first and foremost, his band's manager, a sort of glorified pencil-pusher, it was sometimes easy to forget that danger. Now, however, he found himself wanting to act like a total pussy -- he wanted to run and hide and never look into those harsh, flat, psychopathically steely grey eyes ever again.

But he had to stay. He had to stay for Dethklok's sake and for Murderface's sake. He had to decide whether to keep Murderface on or fire him, and that was proving to be the hardest decision Nathan Explosion had ever had to make in his life.

The Klokateers, at a nod from Ofdensen, set Murderface down in a chair. They cut his bonds and took off his gag. Murderface sprawled there, still unconscious, as limp as a rag doll.

Ofdensen grabbed one of Pickles's opened bottles of beer and upended it over Murderface's head. Murderface sputtered, choked, and then squawked into consciousness.

"Hey, hey!" Pickles snapped, glaring at Ofdensen. "That was _my_ beer you just wasted, buddy!"

"I think you can go a little easier on him, uh, now that he's here," Nathan added. Ofdensen's weird behavior was actually starting to frighten him. The guy hadn't said a word yet.

Ofdensen stared down at Murderface for a moment longer, then finally looked at Nathan. He adjusted his robe and pulled it tighter around him. "If you should decide to fire William, I will have the appropriate forms filled out and waiting for you to sign by eight o'clock this morning," he said. Then he turned and left, the Klokateers following him like black shadows.

Murderface shuddered and shook his head. Droplets of beer sparkled in his impenetrably thick, wiry auburn curls like muddy dewdrops. Some of them flew off and fell elsewhere. His green eyes blinked, bloodshot and watery. The skin of his eyelids was bruised, baggy, and reddened with stress and lack of sleep.

Nathan, angry as he was with Murderface, couldn't help but feel sorry for him, even though he was considering firing him. Murderface was his friend, and had been his friend before Dethklok had even existed. They had depended on each other for physical and emotional survival during their adolescence and young adult years. For a while, despite Nathan's constant flow of girlfriends, all they really had was a little bit of money, a place to sleep, two basses, some crappy assorted amplifiers and gear, and each other. They each had the other, to goad, to prod, to annoy, to irritate, to spur each other on. Nathan might not have ever picked up an electric bass guitar if Murderface hadn't done it first. He might not have considered taking up singing as a career if Murderface hadn't told him that his voice sounded like he swallowed broken glass, vodka, and his own cum for breakfast every morning (Nathan had punched him for that, of course). Looking back over his life, Nathan was forced to admit that without Murderface to serve as a friendly sort of rival, a person that he constantly felt he needed to be better than in every way, he wouldn't be Nathan Explosion, billionaire death vocalist extraordinaire. He would probably just still be a regular jack-off, like everyone else from his past.

It was that thought that ultimately saved Murderface. "Hey, you," Nathan said, his gruff voice far gentler than one might expect, given the circumstances.

Murderface blinked at him, managing to dredge up an expression that was both defiant and fearful. "Yeah? Whaddaya want?"

"Some answers."

"Huh." Murderface made a strangled sort of sobbing sound. Blood leaked from his nose. Nathan handed him a tissue. "Ya might not like th' anschwersch, Nate."

"I don't care."

Murderface gave a long sigh, managed to tear his eyes away from Nathan's face, and looked to the other Dethklok members. They were silent, waiting, knowing that something big and bad and deadly-serious was going down here tonight. The tension was thick (you could have cut it with one of Murderface's knives, had you been there and so inclined to do so), but it was also fragile, like a soap bubble. One touch at the wrong moment, and _poof_ -- the moment for reconciliation would be gone, never to be put back right or recaptured.

So they were silent, and waited while the Dethklok universe revolved neatly around Murderface and Nathan.

At last Murderface said, his voice unusually strangled and weak, "Nathan, you remember Groupie Night?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you remember how I teasched you about the groupie?"

"Uh-huh."

"And... and you remember how you cornered me and pinned me againscht the floor and schaid that you could schit on me all night?"

"Uh-huh."

"And then I..." Murderface sniffled, and shed a tear of blood, "I schaid I wasch worried about you, you fucking schelfisch pig-headed asschhole?"

"Yeah, I remember."

Murderface began to sob, his eyes weeping crimson. "WELL, I'M _SCHTILL_ WORRIED, YOU FUCKIN' ASSCHHOLE! AND YOU HAVEN'T HELPED THISCH FUCKIN' ANXIETY PROBLEM ANY!"

Nathan frowned, though more out of puzzlement than true anger. "What the hell are you on about? Is this about that damn song? Or my girlfriend?"

"Both!"

"Well, get over it. I haven't been the one going around and freaking Toki out over his keyboards. I haven't been trying to get Skwisgaar to stomp all over Toki's ass about the keyboards. I haven't been going around, trying to destroy my best friend when he's in l--" Ooh, that word. He'd almost said it. "Uh, a very, um, seriously, metal, male-female relationship. Whatever." He paused, took in a deep breath, amazed that he'd said that much. When he usually said that many words in one stretch, he would be singing a song. It felt liberating to get it off his chest, but he wasn't done. "So the only one fucking up the band dynamic hasn't been ME, it's been YOU. Now tell me why!"

Murderface glared and swiftly wiped his eyes. "Becausche," he spat, "your girlfriend is just another bird-faced band-wrecking schoul murderessch. And sche will _deschtroy_ your soul from the inschide out, and sche will _deschtroy_ this band, and I am not about to let that happen, Nate!"

Nathan was silent for a moment. Finally, he turned to the rest of the band and said, "Guys, what do you think?"

Pickles shrugged. "Me, I don't think the babe's done anything wrong. Nathan can date her. Hell, I _encouraged_ him to."

Skwisgaar likewise shrugged. "Nathan's being with some girl matters not. And she not a bitch like the others one, I am thinkings."

Toki, slumped against Skwisgaar, nodded. "Miss Elly-ways is nice, Murderface! Don't hurt her!"

Murderface looked more than crestfallen when Nathan looked back to him. "I -- I..." Speaking seemed to be rather difficult for him at the moment.

"So..." Nathan growled, "do you _still_ have a problem with the _Cockblocker Killfest _song? 'Cause... I still want you to be a part of it, you dick. I mean, you're a member of this band, and we're all in it, so... come on. Dick."

Murderface gaped at him. "Nate... really?"

"Yeah." Heedless of Murderface's injuries, he suddenly grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug. "There, ya stupid. You're still in the band; we haven't kicked your ass out. Come on, Murderface, be a dude... not a dick."

Murderface dragged in a long, snuffling breath. "Okay. Okay. I'm schorry, Nate, I'm scho schorry!" He gripped on tight to the back of Nathan's shirt and trembled there like a leaf in the wind for a long time.

All Nathan could say to Murderface's mumbled apologies was, "Yeah, I know, I know, it's okay," but somehow that was enough for both of them.

When he finally let go, Nathan knew it was over. Everything was all right again, and everyone relaxed and sighed just a little.

"Can I..." Murderface swallowed, "can I have th' schtuff for my bassch? Y'know, the muschic and everything? I wanna practice again."

"Yeah. Yeah, sure. Tomorrow." Nathan strengthened his voice and spoke to all of them. "Tomorrow we're all gonna go into that fuckin' studio room and rock out as we have never rocked before! You hear me?"

"Yeah!" they all screamed back as one.

"Toki, you're gonna shake that damn keyboard until it falls over, you hear me?"

"_Ja_, Nathans!" Toki's face, while still wan and pale, was positively glowing in comparison to his earlier miserable condition.

"And Skwisgaar, you're gonna play the fuck outta that guitar until your fingers fuckin' _bleed_, huh?"

"_Ja!_" Skwisgaar's face had the impassioned look of a man about to meet his destiny in Vahalla. His sky-blue eyes had a visionary sheen to them, and his fingers twitched with eagerness, like the muscles of a young colt.

"And Pickles, you're gonna pound those drums until... uh... I dunno, your arms fall off or some shit like that?"

"Hell yeah, Nathan!"

"And Murderface, you're gonna play that bass until... um, you can't play it anymore? I dunno."

"Better and longer than you can, Nate."

Nathan smiled, but there was no malice in it. "We'll see, we'll see." He raised his voice again. "Now get to bed, all of you."

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Despite the fact that all of them were suffering from the aches and pains of a night spent with too little sleep (Murderface in particular, given that he was bruised, scraped-up, and missing several teeth), they all dutifully slogged down to the practice room that following afternoon to practice as a cohesive, complete band together for the first time in weeks.

Despite the aches and pains, it felt good. Murderface, whatever his flaws as a human being and a bassist, got into the swing of playing the bass section with remarkable ease (probably because Nathan himself was also playing bass with him -- "It'll make the sound so much deeper and heavier with two basses, trust me" was Nathan's explanation). Toki again attacked the keyboards with his old vim and vigor, shaking them so hard that the keyboard stand rattled where it stood. Skwisgaar outdid himself, playing with more fire and passion than Nathan had heard in a long time (with Toki likewise shining when he slung his guitar off his back and played rhythm to Skwisgaar's lead). Pickles's drumming was as tight and precise as usual.

And Nathan was finding unexpected depths in his singing, as well. He was moving beyond just the gutteral, machine-gun grunting and growling he usually utilized for his songs. This one had plenty of testosterone and aggression in it, of course, but he was using a more sensual, almost gentle growl for the middle, sexy section of the song. It actually harmonized great with Toki's keyboards, with the higher, ethereal sounds of the keyboards wafting over his lyrics almost like another voice. It was a little like a duet, and Nathan relished the challenge it presented.

When they finally stopped for the day, exhausted, Nathan could barely speak. He gave his band-mates the thumbs' up, then the metal-horns salute. Silently, they saluted back.

That felt good. He was on top of his game again.

As he walked back to his rooms, he had a second thought and decided to call Angélique. The phone rang several times before she picked up. When she did, her "Hello?" was subdued and unenthusiastic.

"Hey, Angie, it's Nathan. I, uhm, hope you're feeling better."

A slight pause. "Feeling better? Oh, a little, I guess."

"You wanna resh-- resceda-- have another date, sometime? You can pick the time, the place. Anything you want?"

Another pause, longer than the first. "Nathan, I'll be honest with you, and I hope that..." he heard her swallowing across the connection, "I hope that you won't be angry with me."

"I'm not angry. I'm not."

"Good. I... wasn't feeling sick, the other day. Well, actually, if I was, it was because I was hurt."

Nathan's heart leapt up into somewhere inside of his throat, while his stomach seemed to do the Twist and then plummet down into his pelvic area. "You didn't fall down some stairs or something, did you? You aren't in the hospital? At least, I know you aren't in a coma, because people in comas can't talk... can they?"

Another pause. "No, no, I don't think so. Actually, Nathan, I heard... a rumor. About you. And I guess I need to talk to you about it."

He blinked, and almost ran into a wall. "Uhh, sure. Your place or mine?"

"I... I think the Dethklok employee cafeteria is still open. You could meet me there." She sounded slightly mistrustful, and he wondered as to just what the rumor was.

_Shit._ His good mood began to dissipate. "Sure, sure. I'll be right there."

"Okay." Her voice was almost a whisper. " 'Bye."

"Yeah, 'bye." He cut the connection, clipped his Dethphone back onto his belt, then headed off for the cafeteria at a fast trot.

When he reached the cafeteria, it was nearly empty. He recognized Angélique immediately. Her face looked rather wan and pale, but it could have been because of the dim reddish lighting that filled the place. He sat down across from her. "Hey."

She smiled, but even that had little life in it. It reminded him of when he had seen her during the shooting of _Blood Ocean_; how her eyes had always looked so defeated, beaten, and hopeless. He hated that look; hated it more than anything.

"Uhhh, what's the special today?" he asked, wanting to make some conversation.

She turned and looked over at the menu board. "Roast chicken sandwich. I've had it before; it's good."

"Oh, okay." He pulled out his battered leather billfold and took out a ten-dollar bill. "That should cover my chicken sandwich and whatever you want. We can, um, go order together. If you want."

She nodded.

It turned out that they both got the special. Angélique munched on her sandwich in silence before he asked her about the dreaded rumor.

She put her sandwich down and was silent for a moment, her head bowed. When she spoke, her voice quavered. "Your friend Murderface... he said... he said that you told your friends about me. That you all laughed at me because we haven't had sex yet." Tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks, and she made no effort to brush them away. "He said that you would get tired of me and dump me."

Nathan's mouth dropped open; the half-eaten, mashed-up lump of chicken he'd been gnawing on tumbled to his tray with a _splat_. "What? That's... Angie, that's not true. I swear by all things dark and metal and brutal, I swear on the graves of Rhoads and Burton, that is _not_ true. I swear."

She looked at him very sharply. "It isn't, then."

"Murderface was just dicking around. He was trying to break us up... but now... he's not. We've all set him straight, trust me. And nobody's laughing at you, the other guys think you're awesome."

She nodded, then suddenly looked worried. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Nathan, I threw a stapler at his head! I nearly hit him with it, I was so angry!"

"Well, good! That's awesome and totally metal." He grinned, and took a bite of his sandwich. "See, I knew you had it in you to be brutal."

She smiled, flustered. "If you say so."

"Here..." he slowly reached out to her face, paper napkin in hand. He delicately daubed at the tears on her cheeks. "There."

"Thank you," she whispered.

They finished their respective sandwiches in a silence that was relatively comfortable. When they were done, Nathan offered to escort Angélique back to her apartments, but she politely declined. He was confused until she told him why.

"Nathan... I was thinking you could escort me back to your room, instead." She looked up at him shyly. He got the message.

Normally, he would have jumped at the chance, but that sense of bizarre chivalry held him back for a moment. "Angie, you don't have to prove anything to me..."

She hugged him. "I'm not, trust me. I just... feel like being brave about this."

He grinned as she laid her head against his shoulder. "Okay."

So they went back to Nathan's. And finally, though he didn't know it at the time, Pickles's worries about Nathan's situation were at last laid to rest.

_**To be continued... **_

_**Translations:**_ "Stupid, silly Toki. I'm not going to explode! Or die! Or die by exploding!"

"Toki, Toki, my brother, calm down. You're safe, you're safe. I'm here for you. I will always be here for you. My brother..."

Again, big thanks for genuine Swedish translations must go to _frostflowers_. Much thanks and gratitude.

**Author's notes:** The Rhoads and Burton references Nathan makes throughout are, of course, references to real-life musicians Randy Rhoads, guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, and Cliff Burton, bass guitarist for Metallica.

I'm sure there are some Type O Negative fans here. Those of you who've seen the ToN DVD "Symphony for the Devil" might be interested to know that I based Toki's enthusiastic keyboarding on Josh Silver's live performances on the DVD. Seriously, that guy _rocks_ his keyboards -- as in, he _**literally**_ rocks them. He comes close to pushing one of 'em over during one song!

Also, this fic is almost through. I've only got two more chapters to go. Tell me what you think! Do you love it, hate, feel indifferent towards it? Why? I can only get better with feedback and criticism. I don't exclusively ask for only positive reviews; all I want is honesty. I try to be honest and detailed in my reviews to others... that is all I ask of my readers. I will _never_ hold a story of mine hostage for a certain number of reviews... but I do love getting them. Don't we all? ;-)


	7. Evil Woman

_**Chapter Seven: Evil Woman**_

**Author's notes:** The _Cockblocker Killfest_ show is _very_ closely based on Carnivore's 2006 and beyond reunion shows. Carnivore, for those not in the know, is Type O Negative frontman Peter Steele's old thrash band, which he's re-formed and occasionally tours with as a nostalgic lark (and money-maker).

Go on Youtube for live Carnivore shows at Wacken and you'll basically see _Cockblocker_ in the flesh... or at least a little bit of what I'd imagine it to be like. There's the band members dressed in blood-red t-shirts, butcher's aprons, and daubed with fake gore, half-naked "blood girls" throwing red stuff at the audience, and Peter Steele yelling about sex and violence and playing his nifty black-and-red bass. Check it out.

Oh, and Nathan's line about killing the dorky journalist with the Bic pen is a _direct_ (and by that, I mean "totally plagiarized") rip-off of what Peter Steele himself has said numerous times about what he would like to do to journalists... especially the ones who antagonize him, quote him out of context, or put words in his mouth about what he didn't mean to say or never said.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

_Revenge_. It was so close that she could almost taste it.

Rebecca sat in her hut, hands clamped around a hot themos of microwavable soup, her eyes glued to the little black-and-white TV that picked up only channel -- the Dethklok channel, which broadcast a constant stream of Dethklok music videos, news, updates, interviews, and Dethklok Minutes. She smiled grimly at the scene unfolding before her; Nathan Explosion was giving an interview. Or trying to. _You stupid, stammering ape,_ she thought. _I tried to break you, and I guess I failed. Well, try, try, again. And this time I'll have you where I want you._

She had come to blame everything bad in her life on Nathan. Her fall, her disfigurement, her current state of exile from most of the common comforts of life -- it seemed that there was some sort of outside force at work, a force that had been against her from the moment after she had first seduced him. Oh, sure, that had worked beautifully at first. At first, he had eaten out of her hand, and though she had caught an occasional flash of resentment or hatred in his eyes, for the most part he had played the desired role of her slave. And she would have had him forever, if fate hadn't intervened and caused her to tumble down several flights of stairs.

Grunting in annoyance, she turned up the volume on her set and sipped at her thin, piping-hot soup.

"Ladies and, um, gentlemen," Nathan was saying. His brilliant green eyes were fixed in a watery squint from all the cameras going off in his face. "I'm here to announce that Dethklok has finished our latest album, and will be releasing it to the public on... um..." Ofdensen came and whispered something in his ear. "Oh, yeah, right. Okay. We'll be releasing it on July 28. So. Uh. Buy it?" He coughed. "Any questions?"

A forest of hands went up, and a clamor of voices called out for his attention.

"Um..." Nathan pointed at someone. "Yeah, you there, in the horrible suit. What's your question?"

A thin, reedy man in what Rebecca had to admit _was_ a horrible suit stood up. "Mr. Explosion," he said in a high, nasal voice, "rumors have been circulating that you have a new girlfriend. Is this true? What's her name? What does she do? And how did she--"

"Hey," Nathan snarled, "I'm here to talk about the album, you dick, and get people to go out and fuckin' buy it. I'm not talking about who I'm with. Because it's none of anyone else's fuckin' business. Now siddown before I come over there and kill you with your fuckin' Bic pen."

The man gulped and dropped into his seat like a falling rock.

Nathan glared at the sea of reporters and fans. "Any other questions? About the album?"

A woman stood up. "Mr. Explosion, can you tell us what themes will be covered on the album? Rumors are circulating that some of this material will be a departure, thematically, for the band."

Nathan grunted and chewed at his lower lip. "All I can say, to you and anyone else, is that Dethklok will make _everything_ metal. Even things that people think aren't metal, we will make them metal. So whatever's on this album, all I gotta say is, it's metal. And metalheads will like it. Trust me."

Rebecca turned off her TV in disgust, but also in anticipation. Dethklok was releasing a new album. That meant touring, and shows, and groupies. It also meant a chance for her to get close to Skwisgaar. _Perfect._ Now she just had to get their tour dates and then start stalking them.

She had been thinking for a long time of how she would kill Skwisgaar when she finally seduced him. To seduce him and lie with him was not enough; she needed to end him, as well. To kill the fastest guitarist in the world would be to stab a dagger deep into the heart of Dethklok itself. It would be a mortal wound from which they would never recover. Dethklok was not as other bands were. In some other rock bands, when a member died or left, the others found someone new and moved on. But Dethklok, Rebecca knew, was different. They were all too codependent to survive without each other. It was the band's unique strength, but it was also its weakness, its Achilles tendon. And Rebecca intended to be the one to shoot the fatal arrow into that tendon.

She knew she wouldn't survive for very long afterwards, but it would be a fitting end for her, and a final end for Nathan.

"Goodbye, lovers," she whispered. She threw her head back and laughed a high, girlish laugh.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

"Well, I gotta admit, boys, you really have made everything metal!" Dick "Magic Ears" Knubbler said after the last notes of the album version of _Cockblocker Killfest (Bathe In Blood)_ faded away. He laughed his braying, nasal laugh, and the others laughed with him.

"Want schome more beer, Dick?" Murderface said. Nathan noticed that their bassist was unusually chummy with the producer, but he didn't comment on it. _Let ol' Dogface have his friends. Who am I to complain? At least he's off my back about Angélique. _

"Don't mind if I do, Murderface, don't mind if I do!" Knubbler took the ice-cold beer Murderface offered him, and chugged like a professional drinker... which he probably was, aside from being a professional record-producer. "You know," he said when he paused from drinking to take a breath, "I honestly didn't think you boys had it in you to make a metal _love_ song, but I gotta say, you've proven me wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!" He cackled again, then belched. "Now, I gotta ask, how did you get that deep, sludgy sound? That was fuckin' _heavy_, man! It makes the stuff we did in the Mariana Trench sound as light and fluffy as fairies pissin' on bluebells!"

Murderface guffawed until he farted, leaving Nathan to answer. "Well, I mixed most of the album, along with Pickles, here, so what we did is we used two basses this time, and we didn't mix Murderface out."

"Two basses?" Dick's metallic eyes sparkled green. "Where'd you find the other player? Or did you just have Murderface do another take?"

"Nah, it was me. I played the second bass."

"You? Well, I gotta say, sonny, you're pretty damn good."

Nathan actually blushed. "Well, I couldn't have done it without Murderface, you know?"

Murderface looked up. "Aw, really, Nate? Thanksch."

"And you, Toki!" Knubbler turned to the rhythm guitarist. "You rocked those keyboards, I gotta say! I really think you've shown a side of yourself that people will really want to see! It just makes everything more... I dunno, special!"

"Thank yous," Toki said shyly. "But lets not forget our Skwisgaar heres."

"Oh, how could I?" Knubbler gushed. "Your guitar solo -- well, what can I say? It fuckin' rocked. Just like everything else."

"_Ja_," Skwisgaar said, folding his arms back behind his head and leaning back. "Well, alls I can says is, that's cuz we... rocks."

"This is gonna be great, just great!" Knubbler drained the beer. "So, when do you go on tour? Where's your first stop-off?"

"Actually, we were thinking of having our first show here, in Norway," Nathan said. "Not in Mordhaus, but close to it. On the property, you know?"

"Huh, well, I can see it happening, yeah. Any particular reason why, though?"

"It's just to give all the regular jack-offs that live in the villages and stuff around Mordland to get to go to a Dethklok show. A lot of 'em are really poor and miserable and, y'know, regular jack-offs, so we feel it's only fair. And plus, the die-hards around the country and the world, they'll come here anyways."

"Huh. Cool, cool. So, you gonna debut _Cockblocker Killfest_ here?"

Nathan's grin was positively, wickedly eager. "Fuck, yes."

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

The concert preparations took several weeks of hard work. The fans flooded in. Nathan found himself staying up to all hours of the night, discussing concert details with Ofdensen. They both decided that this tour, as well as the following ones around the world, would be much safer for the fans than previous ones. Everyone would still have to sign a pain waiver to get in, but it was bad business to kill off too many of their fans. It meant they couldn't buy the next album, after all, or go to any more shows.

Nathan redesigned the band's outfits and instruments. They would all be wearing blood-red shirts, pants, and socks. Everything except the boots -- Nathan had had been wearing his old black leather boots for a long time, and he had no intention of breaking in a new pair just for a show. Besides, their outfits needed some contrast, he decided. Even Pickles got a red headband, to match his hair.

He also oversaw the repainting or replacing of their instruments. Both Toki and Skwisgaar got new, matching, candy-red Gibson guitars, and Toki painted his old keyboards red, even including the black keys. Both Murderface and Nathan repainted their basses, making the bodies solid black and painting the frets red. Pickles got a new, crimson, shiny drum kit that gleamed like a car fresh off the showroom floor, complete with dark red drumsticks.

The days were so full of work and things to do that they flew by in an exhausting blur. Nathan was so busy he barely had time to eat or drink, and no energy for sex. At night he would give Angélique, already sleeping beside him, a chaste smooch on the cheek and then collapse beside her, careful not to squish her beneath his weight. And when he woke in the morning, he would find her nestled close to him, the curves of her hip and buttocks fitting against his own form as if even her body had been made to fit into every aspect of his life just so.

He felt both old and young. The constant pressures and stresses of life were beginning to show; one morning he discovered his first grey hairs -- a small unruly thicket of them growing wild at his right temple. Angélique had only laughed softly and tucked them behind his ear with a finger. "It makes you look distinguished," she had said.

"Is that good?" he had asked, unable to keep a note of worry out of his voice.

"Always," she had replied. And so Nathan hadn't worried after that.

It felt as though Dethklok was on the cusp of a new beginning, or the start of a new direction. He knew that _Cockblocker Killfest_ was different than anything they had ever done before -- lyrically, musically, vocally, and visually. It was a bit intimidating, even for him, but it was also challenging, and Nathan liked challenges. It reminded him of when he had been a teenager, before he'd quit school, before he'd been kicked out of his parents' house. Back when he had been the high school football hot-shot, when everyone had loved him and cheered his name every single time he stepped out onto the field. He had loved that, actually; loved pushing his body to the utmost, loved letting his physical instincts take over, loved the fact that finally he was no longer the huge, silent, retarded freak that everyone had taken him for being back in childhood. Finally, he had belonged somewhere and meant something, and even though Nathan routinely hated his fans on sheer principle, at heart that acceptance meant something to him. How could it not?

With Dethklok, it meant the same. Finally, he had a family -- a family of his own choosing, who were cool and metal and brutal, not embarrassing and stupid and uncaring, like his old one. Sure, he and the guys regularly fought and punched each other and called one another all manner of rude names, but hey, that was what family was about. And he had a girl again, and that was like family, too, only with the added benefit of providing him with someone warm to snuggle with (which he found he actually liked after he took Toki's advice and tried it).

The days and nights ground down to C-Day, the day of the concert, the day when they would debut _Cockblocker Killfest_/i live. The day when it would all come together, finally.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

The evening was cool and red. The sun was setting in a blaze of crimson and violet, and thousands of Dethklok fans were ready and salivating for the show of the century to begin. Cameras of all sorts, from the big professional ones that would broadcast this concert live all around the world to the tiny cell-phone cameras held aloft by thousands of fans, were buzzing around, focusing in on the stage. The cell-phone lights looked like little stars burning in the twilight.

The concert was being held in a rather broad valley flanked by mountains. The massive stage, which had taken weeks of virtually unceasing labor to build, was painted in garish slashes of red and black. Vats of bubbling red liquid meant to simulate blood (Nathan had wanted to use real animal blood, but Ofdensen had voted that down as a potential health hazard) steamed in pits on the stage's broad surface; Nathan would have to be careful not to walk into them as he performed onstage. A sort of shower system was set up around the crowd area, ready to douse the fans with fake blood.

They had chosen an old-fashioned red velvet curtain to hide the stage until the show started; Nathan and the rest of Dethklok, along with some roadies, were currently behind the curtain, making last-minute checks on everything. They could hear the roar of the crowd beyond, vibrating the curtain and shaking the stage like the sounds of a large, caged, and restless animal.

The roadies, their chores done, scrambled away. Nathan took his position next to his mike, bass strap slung over one shoulder. He turned, looked at his bandmates, made sure everyone was in position. Everyone's faces, including Nathan's, was smeared with fake blood and was dripping wet and red. Pickles was up high on his spike-studded drum kit throne. Murderface had his bass. Skwisgaar had his guitar. Toki had his keyboards arrayed around him like the control panels of a futuristic space-ship; slung across his back, waiting, was his guitar. Nathan knew that the younger man could switch from his keyboards to his guitar in a heartbeat.

"Okay. Okay." He took a deep breath, gestured for the curtain to be lifted. It parted in the middle and slowly went to the sides. The stage lights flared crimson and the crowd howled like a demon-possessed banshee.

Nathan waited for the screaming to abate somewhat before he gestured for silence. Immediately, he had it. He lifted a finger in Toki's direction, and Toki laid on the keyboards, sending up a wave of soft, dark, ambient sounds that filled the air like distant chants from the bowels of Hell. The crowd was silent, spellbound -- they'd never heard anything like this before from Dethklok.

Nathan stepped up to the mike and growled, "Do you know why you are here tonight?"

Screams of _"DETHKLOK! DETHKLOK!"_ filled the evening air.

"That's right!" Nathan bellowed. "But do you remember when we said that we would make everything, and I mean _everything_, metal?"

_"YES, YES!"_ they shouted.

He let the noise die down before saying, "Well, in your opinion, is there anything that possibly couldn't be made metal? Are there things in this universe that are inherently non-brutal?" _Damn, that's a lot of big words,_ he thought. Fear was starting to trickle through his guts, just a little. He forced the sensation to the background of his consciousness and instead concentrating on winning the crowd over.

The response was mixed. Shouts of _"No!"_ and _"Yes!"_ could be heard, in about equal amounts.

"Well, um, what would you say isn't metal?" Nathan said, holding the mic out to the crowd for a moment.

One skinny, mohawk-haired punk right up at the front shouted, "Sissy crap like hope and peace and love! _Especially_ love!" The stage lights glinted off his braces.

Nathan whipped the mic back. "_**Wrong,**_ motherfucker!" As if on cue, someone else in the audience punched the braces-wearing mohawked punk. Nathan ignored this and continued, "When I said we are here to make everything metal, I fuckin' meant it. Hatred is metal. Brutality is metal. Vengeance is metal. But so is love. Love is metal... _WHEN YOU AND THE PERSON YOU LOVE MOST IN THIS FUCKIN' WORLD ARE BATHING TOGETHER IN __**BLOOOOD!**_"

Pickles clicked his drumsticks together, setting up a fast, sharp percussion as Nathan tipped his head back and shrieked, "FUUUUUCKERS!"

Then they went into _Cockblocker Killfest_, and it was better than Nathan could have expected -- better than he could have dreamed. Everything sounded absolutely perfect. Toki's keyboards flowed especially well with the melody of the song, using at first a staccato pounding to complement Skwisgaar's shredding and the low, ominous growling of both Nathan's and Murderface's basses, then the keyboards switched to a slow, almost dreamy part where Nathan sang about having sex on the pile of severed heads.

And that's when the blood-shower was turned on.

Gallons of warm, fake blood rained in a gentle patter down over the heads of the howling, moaning Dethklok fans. They cheered and raised their red-stained hands to the darkened sky. It was like a crimson forest had suddenly sprouted up. Metalhead girls were jumping up and down, crowd-surfing, or making out with fellow fans of either gender. Some had their t-shirts stuck to their breasts from all the red, warm liquid; others had ripped off their tops in favor of letting the stuff trickle down their bare boobs. It was all happening just as Pickles had predicted. Dethklok's metal love song was setting off a mass orgy of frantic, horny, cheering fans. It was truly like nothing ever seen before.

With all that sex going on just below them, Nathan was very proud that no one in Dethklok actually succumbed to the temptation to allow the naked fan flesh on display to distract them from their work. Everyone played at a consummately professional level. Nathan particularly enjoyed the moment when he and Murderface, both playing bass, began to do a little "dueling basses". He looked over at Murderface and winked and grinned; so did Murderface. Nathan never thought about how amazing his skill with the bass was tonight, nor did he wonder why it was so; all he knew was that his fingers were flying over the strings as they had only done when he was a teenager and feeling either particularly superior to or particularly angry with Murderface. But tonight, he wasn't feeling either of those emotions; it was perfect simpatico. Skwisgaar joined in on his guitar and added into the bass-heavy mix, then Toki joined in on his guitar before cutting back to his keyboards again and Nathan returned to singing. But the moment with Murderface had been simply electrifying.

_Cockblocker Killfest_ ended with gentle, darkly ambient sounds from Toki's keyboards, wafting over the moaning crowd like a mountain breeze. Slowly, the moans turned to cheers as fans got up off the watery red ground, pulled their sodden clothes back on, and howled like maniacs:

_"DETHKLOK, DETHKLOK, DETHKLOK!"_

"I hope you enjoyed that!" Nathan said. "Hell, I can _see_ you did." Chuckles and shouts of laughter greeted this.

"I hope that the future of metal was conceived here tonight, engendered by your gory loins, nestled now in your dark and brutal wombs," Nathan continued, "and when your kids ask you where they were conceived, tell them it was at a Dethklok concert, where you heard the most metal love song, of all fuckin' time!"

_**"DETHKLOK, DETHKLOK, DETHKLOK!"**_

"Three cheers for love, you horny fuckers!"

_**"LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!"**_

"Thank you. Now," Nathan grinned, "I have another song for you. It's not about love. It's about the opposite of love, and that is hate. And it's going out to a very special man tonight... man by the name of James Grishnack. Who I hope is listening to this live broadcast. It's called... _Blood Boiling._"

That song, and indeed the rest of the set, went off without a hitch. Aside from some minor scuffles in the audience, there hardly any fan injuries and, amazingly, no casualties. It was the safest Dethklok concert ever. Truly, it had been a night when love had worked its magic spell. They even did a shortened encore performance of _Cockblocker Killfest (Bathe In Blood)_ to cap the evening off.

In times to come, Nathan would cherish the memories of that night, because it was the last such night that any of them would ever experience.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Skwisgaar had never felt better than he did coming off that stage that night. He felt pumped, able to take on the world, able to play forever, able to run and fight and fuck forever. Very primal feelings, very elemental. _There must be groupies around here,_ he thought. _I need one. Gotta find one, and have her._

So he wandered off into the depths of the backstage area, alone. And then he saw her.

It was strange; there she was, wrapped up in a blood-red cloak like some sort of adult Little Red Riding Hood. Her face was shadowed by the deep hood; he could see strands of luscious blond curls peeping out at the hood's edges. Her body was slim and straight, her legs long and toned. From the way the cloak fell on her frame, he knew she was naked underneath.

He blinked, swallowed. Something was going off in the back of his mind, telling him that this was dangerous, that he needed to leave while he still could. But he was feeling horny and energetic and slightly drunk, and just seeing this mysterious woman was making him feel even more horny.

"Hey theres, pretty lady," he called out. "Did yous see our show and get so hornies you had to come make out with someones?" He winked. "Someones like Skwisgaar Skwigelf, fastest guitarist alive?"

"Yes," she whispered in a throaty, seductive voice. "I heard from afar. I am drawn to blood."

"Ooh, so yous a vampire? I gots to worry about you biting my neck and letting out all my bloods? 'Cause I needs the bloods for... certain parts, you knowing?"

She chuckled. "I don't bite unless my partners ask me to, Skwisgaar."

"Oh. That good. I guess." For once, he felt less smooth and seductive than his potential sexual partner. It was both disorientating and arousing. What would it be like, he wondered, to put himself in this woman's hands? What unparalleled sensual delights would he experience... or endure? He was suddenly panting to find out.

"You're already eager," the woman said. Though he still couldn't see her face, he knew somehow that her eyes were fastened on his crotch. Which, he had to admit, _was_ quite obviously eager.

"Umm..."

She laughed softly. "You don't need to be afraid, Skwisgaar." She glided closer, her smooth steps revealing flashes of long, white, straight legs. Skwisgaar's breath seemed to catch in his throat; his skin suddenly felt much too hot. He felt like ripping his clothing off there and then.

She was right in front of him. When she spoke again, there was a vulnerable tremble in her voice. "I... I have heard that you have... unusual tastes. That you take women who are old, scarred, overweight, ugly."

"Wells, I'm a generous sorts of guy, you knows? It's what's on the inside that counts, for me." _What's on the insides of the spot between their legs,_ he thought cynically. Besides, an old or ugly sexual partner was more likely to be grateful to Skwisgaar for even noticing them, and would usually do anything he asked them to. He found the power it gave him... gratifying.

He squinted down at her, more curious than ever to see her face. "So, what's yous look like, eh? Skwisgaar promises he will not be turnings you away, now..."

"Of course not," she whispered, running a single finger up the fly of his pants. Oh. He could _feel_ that. He gulped.

And then she lowered the hood, and with it the cloak.

Skwisgaar gasped, amazed. She had the face of a devil but the body of an angel. The contrast was the most amazing and arousing thing he'd ever seen in his life. It was truly metal.

Her face, crowned with long, soft, golden waves of hair, was scarred, pock-marked, dented, and puffed. One cheekbone was mashed almost flat, forming a deep, concave shadow beneath her eye; the other, as if trying to compensate for its fellow's lack of shape, was bulging outward sharply, almost as though it was straining to press through the flesh. Her nose was crooked and lumpen, with one nostril higher than the other. Her high, round forehead was lacerated with white scars that streaked up into her hairline. Her lips were pulled by scars and improperly-healed bones into a rictus of a smile, and in her mouth he could see chipped teeth and dark gaps between them. The only thing about her face that was still beautiful were her burning, intense blue eyes. They stared up into Skwisgaar's own eyes as if challenging him to send her away.

Her face was a horror, but her body... Skwisgaar blushed as he found himself looking downward. Her body was long and slender, with gentle curves and long, lean muscles. Her arms and legs had good muscle tone -- far better than he was used to seeing in his sexual partners, in fact. Her breasts were not especially large, but were round and full and pale, with pink nipples that were now erect, waiting for his fingers to touch them. And at the juncture of her thighs there was a triangular patch of tightly curled golden hair that was just a shade darker than the hair of her head.

He found himself staring down there and not moving his gaze. She chuckled.

"Like what you see?"

"Oh, _ja._ Hells, _ja._"

Her laugh was sharper this time. "Good." She moved her legs apart, just a little, and he slipped his hand between her thighs.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

A couple hours or so later (it was hard to keep track of time when you were having so much fun) he and she lay on Skwisgaar's bed, which was tucked into a little room backstage that was designated for just this purpose. The door was locked; no one entered without Skwisgaar's permission. Which was good; Skwisgaar, though he was neither ashamed of showing his naked body or his many conquests, was no porn star, in the fact that he could never get it on with someone if someone else (such as the rest of Dethklok) were watching him or were even likely to unexpectedly burst in on the action. It was actually something of a phobia of his, but since he had the reputation of being the most promiscuous stud in metal, he liked to keep outside knowledge of that phobia hidden. Well hidden.

She stirred against his side; there was the soft, rather sticky sound of two bodies covered in sweat rubbing against each other. Skwisgaar was suddenly glad he was still young, because he could feel himself starting to respond again to her touch. Dear Odin, she was _ravenous_. Sex with her had been a painful pleasure, certainly... his wandering fingers caressed her hip, then trailed upwards onto his own body, stroking the marks left by her nails and teeth. A truly metal lover, that's what she was. And he needed to have her again. And again. And again....

"You're pretty damn good in bed, Skwisgaar," said his mystery woman. Her expert fingers stroked his bare chest and circled his belly-button. In the gloom, her smile was the most grotesque thing he'd ever seen. "But I know something that could make it even more fun...."

"Like whats?"

"Like something illegal," she whispered. Her malformed lips suckled gently on his earlobe.

"Likes, drugs, you means?"

"Yes. How about some cocaine? I can show you how to really get high."

"Hmmm..." Skwisgaar considered this. He really wasn't much of a drug user, unless you counted occasionally getting very, very drunk as drug usage. But even then he didn't drink nearly as much as either Nathan or Pickles, and never before a show. Getting drunk slowed his reflexes, made his playing slow and sloppy, made him almost as bad as Toki, come to think of it. It was... unprofessional.

"Have you ever tried cocaine?"

"No," he admitted, shaking his head.

"It will make you feel really good. _Really_ good." She took out a little vial of heroin she had concealed in a deep inner pocket of her cloak. "Why don't we mix it with some of this? It'll be twice as fun. Get me some cocaine," she whispered, "and then we can have more sex. All the sex you could want... or stand."

He blinked dully at her in the dim light, all of his possible protests melting like sand castles in a hurricane at the prospect of more sex with her. And even better than before! It was like a dream of his come true!

"Okays," he finally said with a sigh. "I goes get us some drugs." He crawled out of bed on his hands and knees, scraping blindly around on the floor for some of his clothing. When he found his trousers and boots, he pulled them on in the near-darkness and wandered out, shirtless, his pale flesh sticky with sweat and crisscrossed with marks.

She lay back, content. "Good," he heard her whisper as he slipped out the door and locked it behind himself.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

If there was something else Skwisgaar was good at, besides playing the guitar and having sex with malformed women, he was good at sneaking around in places where he shouldn't be and getting into things he shouldn't get into. It was a skill he'd learned early on in life, when he'd snuck around Serveta -- often i_literally/i_ snuck around her -- to get what he wanted, or needed.

He knew where to find cocaine -- Pickles kept a small stash of it in his own room. He tip-toed to Pickles's room on silent feet, watching and listening for anyone in the hall and also listening for any sounds of activity from inside Pickles's room. Then he took a paperclip out of his pocket and tried the lock, listening hard until he heard the click of the locking mechanism giving way. He turned the doorknob quietly and tip-toed inside, sliding his feet over the floor so as to not lift them and step down directly on a beer bottle or can or the like.

Soft, wheezing snores came from Pickles's messy bed; two forms, male and female, lay tangled together under the mussed covers. Skwisgaar grinned; Pickles, it seemed, had found his own bed-mate for the night.

He moved silently over to Pickles's dresser drawer and slid out the bottom drawer, holding his breath until it came out smoothly. He pushed the clothing aside and felt around in the bottom for the hidden compartment he knew was in there. He found it, and pulled it up and groped about until his hands came to rest on a small plastic baggie filled with a powdery substance. He pulled it out and held it up, examining it. The room was very dark, but even so he could tell the stuff inside was white.

He knew that Pickles would never simply give him the cocaine, not even if he asked nicely. Pickles was stingy about sharing his drugs, usually only giving out cigarettes and joints, and then only to people he could trust not to misuse them, like Toki, who normally had even less of a taste for drugs than Skwisgaar. Pickles was especially sensitive about potentially dangerous stuff. "This shit could kill you," he would say to Skwisgaar if Skwisgaar were to ask. "I'm practically immune to the crap; it doesn't raise my blood pressure one iota, but I'm not gonna be responsible for givin' you...."

Right now Skwisgaar didn't care what Pickles or anyone else would say. He rifled through the secret compartment, grabbing Pickles's supply of weed and some mysterious pills in a can, and then got up to leave.

Pickles snorted and rolled over. There was the shifting sound of a blanket being moved, and the gentle creak of bedsprings. Skwisgaar stilled his breathing and slipped back into the shadows. Pickles mumbled something and then was silent.

Skwisgaar, seeing his chance, went out.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Rebecca sat up when the door opened and Skwisgaar's tall, lanky frame appeared in the doorway. "Did you get it?" Her voice was a whisper.

"_Ja._ I gots it." He closed and locked the door, held up a little baggie full of white powder.

She smiled. "Excellent." She reached for her cloak, dug out a clean, wrapped syringe. She set that on the dresser, next to the heroin. "Now we just have to mix this stuff."

"Needles?" Skwisgaar said doubtfully as he came over to sit beside her. She laid a hand on the cool, sticky flesh of his arm, and felt him trembling. "I's... not liking needles."

"We have to do it this way. It'll feel even better than snorting it, trust me."

In truth, Rebecca had never done this. She had only ever actually tried some cocaine once or twice, back when she was a model. It had helped suppress her appetite, which had been a good thing, but she had never gotten addicted. Which was also good, because she knew this shit was dangerous. She knew full well what it could and did lead to. _Constricted blood vessels... high blood pressure..._ She smiled. _And most delightful of all... heart attacks. Even for first-time users. And I mean to pop your cocaine cherry __**hard**__, dear Skwisgaar Skwsizzlestick._

She mixed the cocaine with the heroin and then put it into the syringe. She pressed the plunger to get the air out; a bit of the mixture spurted out and spattered onto the grimy, clothes-strewn floor.

Rebecca took a length of cord and helped Skwisgaar tie it around his upper arm. She pulled it tight and ignored his grunt of protest. "Pump your arm, like this," she said, demonstrating with her own. Skwisgaar obeyed, still looking nervous, but also eager. She could see that he liked doing forbidden things, dangerous things, illegal things; in that, he was a lot like most men in the world -- easy to lead, fool, and manipulate.

"Are yous going first?" Skwisgaar finally asked, staring wide-eyed at the needle.

She laughed. "Oh no, it's not 'ladies first' tonight, lover. This will get you in the mood for more and I want that from you. Trust me." She laid a hand on his bare chest and looked into his eyes. There was some wariness there -- the residue left by a lifetime of disappointment and betrayal -- but there was also some eagerness there, too, a desire to leap into the abyss and see where he ended up. Skwisgaar had probably been doing that in one form or another his whole life.

"I like you," she said softly. "I want you. Not just tonight, but for longer. I want more of you."

"Hows can you haves more?" he said, one long, elegant eyebrow going up into his mussed, sweat-darkened hairline. "Yous already had sex with me."

She leaned in close enough that she could smell his breath. Aside from the slight tinge of alcohol on it, it was actually quite sweet. It reminded her of a very young child's breath.

"I want," she said slowly, drawing little designs on his chest with the tip of a finger, "to be with you. When you go on tour, I want to go along. To be with you... make love with you... there's so much more I can show you, Skwisgaar. So much more to be experienced." The last was true, but she had no intention of going with him on any tour. It was too dangerous and she was too likely to be spotted and recognized by Ofdensen or Nathan. _And I have no intention of letting you go on tour, either, lover-boy._

"My arm's hurting," Skwisgaar said, suddenly sounding like a worried child.

"Oh, of course." She smiled, winked, hefted the loaded syringe, rested the tip of the needle against a bulging vein. "Don't be afraid," she whispered in Swedish to him. "I'm here for you."

His eyes went wide at that, then she kissed him on the cheek, shoved the needle in, and slowly but steadily depressed the plunger.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

_"Don't be afraid. I'm here for you."_

It sounded eeriely similar to what he had told Toki several weeks ago. That Toki was safe, that Skwisgaar was with him, that Skwisgaar would always be there for him.

The needle bit down into his flesh, a tiny pinprick of pain that made him catch his breath, that centered and focused him. It seemed to give his thoughts a strange and not entirely unwelcome clarity.

On the outside, it was hard to see why Skwisgaar being there for Toki would be a comfort. They were often at each other's throats musically, verbally, and occasionally physically. They often told each other they hated the other, either during a heated argument or just in conversation.

But in some strange way Toki complemented Skwisgaar, both musically and emotionally. He felt closer with Toki than with anyone else in the band, both because they shared a similar ancestry and similar backgrounds filled with abuse, neglect, and parental abandonment. Toki knew what it was like to feel betrayed by those who should have cared for you. He knew what it was like to suffer at the hands of people who should have defended you to their dying breaths. He knew what it was like to feel the anger and helplessness and gnawing pain of a past that was broken and malformed from suffering and loss.

That deep understanding frightened Skwisgaar, but it also made things easier between them. Sometimes things didn't need to be said out loud with Toki. Sometimes they only needed to sit in his room or in Toki's room, side by side, holding hands, their eyes closed and their breathing slowed so that their hearts seemed to beat as one together. It was at those times that he felt they were truly brothers; it was at those times that Skwisgaar almost felt like he could sense Toki's thoughts.

He shot a look over at his mystery woman. She was depressing the plunger and the speedball was going through his veins. A thin, rattling gasp came from his half-open mouth.

_Toki, my brother... my true brother._

His heart was beginning to race, but it wasn't like when he was playing or having sex, it was nothing healthy-feeling like that. There was something frantic and unnatural about the pace of it, like music that was going too fast for him to hear and concentrate on and was becoming nothing more than formless, purposeless, exhausting noise. He began to pant, his mouth filling with slimy, sour-tasting saliva. Beads of greasy sweat were popping out all over his body; he could smell them.

His lover depressed the plunger all the way, then ripped the needle out, carelessly. He tried to howl at the pain, but his voice was only a thin, pathetic rasp. The skin of his arm was torn; a narrow, steady rivulet of crimson trickled, hot and thick, down his shaking forearm.

He fell back on the grimy, sweat-soaked bed and lay there in sticky sheets stained with their own bodily fluids, staring up at her. His whole body was shaking and there was a crushing pain in his chest. Skwisgaar knew enough about health and anatomy to know what that meant.

"Mama! Toki!" he tried to scream, but nothing came out except a rasping sound and some drool, sharp and bitter with the taste of his own bile.

The woman he had thought was his lover stared down at him with an ugly gleam in her eyes. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that was remotely beautiful about her now.

"Goodbye, lover," she said in Swedish, and smiled a demon's own hellish, malformed, utterly insane grin.

As the blackness closed in, he closed his eyes and thought of Toki. It was all he could do, the only comfort he could have.

_My brother._

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Rebecca watched patiently until the man stopped twitching, convulsing, and drooling. She watched until he stopped breathing.

She laid two fingers against the side of his neck. No pulse.

Just to make sure, she kissed his slack, bitter-tasting lips, put a pillow over his face, and held it there for several more minutes.

Rebecca's own blood was pounding in her veins and thudding in her ears. She grinned wildly, biting her lip so that she wouldn't laugh. _Victory._ And it tasted sweet.

She threw the pillow aside, grabbed up her robe, and slipped out of the room and then out of the backstage area entirely, quick and quiet as a shadow.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

"Skwisgaar?"

Outside, the birds were singing and the early morning sun was shining over the field of blood. The massive, flat area where the Dethklok concert-goers had moshed and made love was nothing but a vast mud-field, dotted with crimson puddles, deep gouges, and lumps of sodden trash that ranged from old clothing to candy wrappers to soft drink cans to used condoms.

Toki wandered through the backstage, quelling his morning hunger by munching slightly stale Fruity-Berry Baphomet from a plastic sandwich baggie. In the other hand he held a juice box, which he sipped from time to time to wash down the dry cereal. Beyond, he could hear the sounds of the roadies taking the stage apart and breaking it up and packing what they could pack away for further use. The backstage's plywood and tarp canopy was being opened up and rolled away in sections; the early morning light poured in like a benediction upon him.

Soon the backstage would be dismantled, too, but the Dethcopter was coming in an hour or so to take them back to Mordhaus, so that wasn't bad. He actually had really enjoyed sleeping backstage. It was cramped and a bit noisy and smelled like fresh sawdust and raw paint, but it had reminded him of camping. And when you'd lived for two straight years off the bare Scandinavian landscape, often having nothing but leaves and pine boughs to keep you warm and dry, as Toki had, you appreciated simple comforts far more than the average person would... or could. In his short life, Toki had learned to sleep long and well in literally any situation, and be thankful to the gods for it.

But, though he'd had a long, satisfying night's sleep after the greatest concert of their entire careers, he was up and about and feeling restless. He passed a knot of Klokateers hard at work, who stopped what they were doing and bowed to him. He waved and wandered over. "Yous guys had breakfasts today?" Toki asked, feeling friendly.

"No, my lord," one of the masked men said proudly. "We have been at work disassembling this stage since the break of dawn."

"Well, that's not healthies for yous!" Toki said, alarmed. "Here, hold our yours hands."

They did so without question. Toki dropped a bit of cereal into each man's hand.

"Here, eat that, then go get some mores!" Toki said happily. "It's endorsed by me! And it shaped like little goats's heads!" He beamed like a ray of sunshine. "That's fun!"

"Yes, my lord." They lifted their masks, tossed back the handfuls of cereal, bowed as one, and departed to the makeshift mess tent outside for breakfast.

Toki watched them go. "That's good, Toki," he said in Norwegian to himself. "You're a good boss."

Then he turned and wandered on. He wanted to talk to Skwisgaar about how incredible the concert had been last night, so he went to where he thought the Swede's room was. It was rather hard to find. The backstage was cramped, its hallways narrow, but they were so twisting and there was so much random things laying about everywhere -- clothing, boxes, instruments, spare parts for electronic equipment, trash -- that it was hard to walk around sometimes, let alone find one's way.

Toki had an excellent sense of direction and a good knack for finding his way around places, however, and soon enough he found Skwisgaar's room. He knew it was the right room because there was a little label, slightly askew, that said _"S. Skwigelf"_.

He knocked on the door. "Skwisgaar?"

No response.

"Skwisgaar, yous sleeping in? We gotta goes in an hour."

Silence.

Toki switched to Norwegian. "Skwisgaar, come on, come out and have breakfast with me. They're breaking down the stage already. Let's have breakfast."

Nothing.

He knocked harder. "Skwisgaar? You asleep in there?" He knocked again. "Are you ignoring me?"

Again, nothing.

A serpent of dread began to slither, cold and slow, through Toki's heart. He stuffed the baggie of cereal into his pocket and took out the bent paperclip that he kept in his pocket for occasions like this. Like Skwisgaar, Toki was good at getting into places he shouldn't, and also like his Swedish counterpart, Toki was good at using a paperclip or other similar tool to get past locks.

He wiggled the paperclip around in the lock until he felt and heard it click open. Then he slowly opened the door, whispering "Skwisgaar?" The serpent of dread had, by now, wrapped itself around his heart and was squeezing with all its strength. _If Skwisgaar was okay, he would have said something by now. "Go away, Toki. Leave me alone, you big baby." Something like that. Something...._

The narrow little room was dark inside. He didn't bother flipping on the light; if Skwisgaar was sleeping, he'd only wake up and yell at him. But as he approached the bed, his eyes fixed on Skwisgaar's half-naked form, he realized that the other man wasn't breathing. Skwisgaar was as still as if he'd been carved from stone, and when Toki dropped to his knees to touch him, he was cold.

Toki screamed.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Pickles knew something was horribly, horribly wrong when he heard the screams.

It was rare for Toki to do that. He'd only done it in Pickles's hearing once -- and that had been when Julliette Sarmangsadandle had died. Toki had screamed and screamed until he couldn't even speak above a whisper for almost a week afterwards. And even after that, for at least two more weeks his eyelids had been red and puffy from weeping.

So Pickles, even though his head was pounding from a bad hangover, moved towards the screams as fast as he could. He tripped over crap twice in the near-dark, and when he finally collided in the hall with a screaming, wailing Toki who was running blindly looking for help, he was covered with bruises and scratches. Being almost crushed under Toki's solid, surprisingly heavy body didn't help any.

Toki's screaming was going off like a car alarm in Pickles's ears. The drummer grabbed the younger man and held him tight. "Toki, Toki, what's wrong? Come on, tell me what's wrong. It's Pickles." Toki only struggled and flailed and wept uncontrollably. He was skinny and wiry but also surprisingly strong, and his sharp elbows and knees were mashing Pickles' flesh unmercifully.

"It's Pickles," Pickles said again, resorting to rubbing Toki's bare back like he'd seen Skwisgaar do that one time. He was actually a very good amateur masseur himself, and the rubbing did seem to calm Toki down enough for the young Norwegian to even hear what Pickles was saying. Toki stopped flailing, though he was still gasping for air and trembling.

"Pickles is here for you, buddy," Pickles said, staring into Toki's white, tear-stained face. "Now what happened? Why are you so upset?"

_"Skwisgaar... Skwisgaar... Skwisgaar er død! Han er død!" _ Toki clawed at the front of Pickles's shirt, spittle running from his mouth while clear, thin snot ran from his nose. _"Hjelp meg, hjelp meg; finnes det ingen som kan hjelpe meg? Min bror...."_ He began to scream at the top of his lungs again; a raw, horrible howl that made the thin plywood walls and floor shake. _"DØD! DØD! DØD!"_

Pickles's heart seized up. He knew that last word. _Dead..._

"Toki, come on." He pushed Toki to his feet, which was an act of sheer will in his hungover condition. The two of them, clinging to each other, managed to stay on their feet, but it was precarious. He dragged Toki back to Skwisgaar's room, hanging onto the weeping Norwegian with both hands.

And he turned and stared through the door marked _"S. Swigelf"_, which had been left ajar. But it was opened just enough that Pickles could see what Toki had surely already seen. And Pickles knew that Toki was right.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

"Nathan, you gotta come now. And someone call Ofdensen."

The tone of Pickles's voice was enough to snap Nathan out of his sleep-induced drowsiness. Beside him, Angélique stirred and murmured something in her sleep. He patted her bare shoulder to calm her down.

Nathan carefully sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed. "What's up?" His voice was a near-whisper, both from the stress of last night and the desire to not wake up his girlfriend.

Pickles's face was as white as milk, making the faint freckles across his cheeks and nose stand out. "Skwisgaar is dead."

Nathan was up like a flash, staggering naked out of bed and lurching across the room. Pickles's voice seemed to be coming from a million miles away, and the words sounded like he was speaking a foreign language that Nathan had only just begun to learn. There was no mistaking the tone, however.

Nathan grabbed his old pants from last night up off the floor and whipped them on. "What the fuck? Are you--" Suddenly he felt like vomiting, though amazingly he hadn't really drunk that much last night after the show. "You're shitting me."

"No, Toki found him. You've gotta call Ofdensen."

"You've gotta call a fuckin' doctor, is what you should be doing!" Nathan shoved past Pickles and stormed down the hallway to Skwisgaar's room.

He froze right there. The door was open. Toki was sitting on Skwisgaar's bed. He had Skwisgaar in his lap, creating a disturbing tableaux that was eerily reminiscent of the Pieta. Skwisgaar's head was cradled in the crook of one of Toki's arms. Rigor mortis hadn't fully set in yet. Skwisgaar's skin was very pale. He was only half-dressed. In the dim light, his body looked smaller and strangely childlike, as if he was much younger than his twenty-seven years. Toki clutched Skwisgaar close, rocking him back and forth, moaning in Norwegian.

And Nathan knew then that no doctor, not even the best ones they had at Saint En's, would be able to bring Skwisgaar back. The familiar, handsome face with its high forehead and sculpted cheekbones already looked shrunken and slack in death, and the eyes were closed and sunken. His skin was marble-white tinged with blue. His lips looked thin and pallid. Skwisgaar was dead, and had been dead for hours.

Nathan smelled Murderface coming up behind him. Their bassist smelled like old clothes and sweat and piss and beer; the warm, thick stench was almost comforting now. "Hey, what'sch all the--" Murderface staggered back and hit the wall with a thump. "Oh, schit. Oh schit. What the hell."

"Call Ofdensen," Pickles murmured, and edged past Nathan and stepped into the room. He sat down by Toki, who did not even seem to notice he was there. Muttering something in what sounded like Norwegian to Toki, he took one of Skwisgaar's arms and looked at it, held it up for examination. Even from where Nathan was standing, he could see a long smear of crusted blood streaking down the pale flesh.

Pickles patted Toki's back once and then got up and came back over to Nathan. "His arm is all bloody; looks like he was stuck." He gestured to his own arm. "Right there."

"You mean like he was shooting up heroin? Skwisgaar didn't do that shit."

"I know. I--" Pickles stopped and walked back over to the bed, where he was ignored by Toki. He examined the sheets for a moment and then walked back over to Nathan. "The bed's all stained and messed-up, too. Did anyone see Skwis with a girl last night? Maybe--" he swallowed, pressed a hand to his eyes, then lowered it after a moment and went on in a disturbingly normal voice, as if their lead guitarist wasn't lying dead right now in the arms of their rhythm guitarist. "Maybe he was with a girl and they decided to do some drugs together. I mean, the bed has cum stains all over it. He musta had a party here last night."

"And then he fuckin' OD'd and the bitch schplit," Murderface muttered.

Nathan was incapable of speech. His hands were clenched so tightly into fists that his arms were shaking and he couldn't feel his fingers.

Murderface suddenly waved his hands helplessly and said, "I'm -- I'm gettin' outta here. _Schiiit._" He staggered off down the hall. Nathan didn't try to stop him.

Pickles slumped against the wall. "I -- I --" He pressed his hand against his eyes again and did not remove it this time. "Nathan, what do we do?"

Nathan realized that they would be looking to him to be not just the band leader, but a leader in every other sense of the word after this. He was going to be the one that they came to for advice, for something, for anything, and that suddenly terrified him. He grabbed Pickles's Dethphone and dialed in Ofdensen's private number.

"Ofdensen? Yeah, it's Nathan. Look--" for a moment, Nathan's voice broke, and, like Pickles, he pressed a hand to the bridge of his nose and pinched it, hard-- "you need to come down here. Backstage. Now."

_**To Be Continued...**_

_**Translations:**_ I originally wrote the (English) dialog for Toki as "Skwisgaar... Skwisgaar is dead! He is dead! Help me, help me, please. My brother... DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!" Since I wanted it to be genuine Norwegian, I wasn't content with just running it through an auto-translator; I instead asked for translation help.

_lukadron_ very kindly translated it for me, and since Norwegian doesn't have a direct translation for "please" as an interjection, she used "_finnes det ingen som kan hjelpe meg", _which means, "Is there nobody who can help me?" which works perfectly, given the context. THANKS, luka! *metal fingers salute*

One more chapter to go, people! Thank you for reading so far!

Well, I know this chapter ended on a tragic note. I also know that some people will probably be upset that I did not warn them that there would be character death in it. However, I didn't want to give away the ending of my fic... and plus, a movie doesn't warn us in advance if a main character will die. Neither does a book. I wanted to go for that feeling, to surprise my audience. I do apologize if anyone was offended by a lack of a warning.

Tell me what you think! Do you love it, hate, feel indifferent towards this story? Why? I can only get better with feedback and criticism. I don't exclusively ask for only positive reviews; all I want is honesty. Are the canon characters OOC? Is their dialogue true to how they sound on the show? Am I messing up some obscure detail that was mentioned only once in a single episode? Tell me! I want to know!

I try to be honest and detailed in my reviews to others... that is all I ask of my readers. I will _never_ hold a story of mine hostage for a certain number of reviews... but I do love getting them. Don't we all? ;-)


	8. This Is The End, My Friend

_**Epilogue: This Is The End, My Friend**_

The flames hadn't even been lit, and already Nathan felt like he was the one being burnt.

Skwisgaar lay in state on the pyre. He was dressed in his very best: a clean pair of black jeans, a nice black sleeveless shirt, his belt with the familiar skull buckle, his favorite part of old boots. His hair was clean and combed, spread out over his chest like shining gold. Lying vertically on his body was his favorite guitar, his favorite, the one that he had rarely been seen without. Someone had clasped his fingers around the neck.

Nathan could barely even stand to look at him, but he looked anyway. The cruel thing of it was that he couldn't even tear his gaze away. He couldn't even blink. So he just stared and stared until his eyes watered and the tears ran down his cheeks. It wasn't really crying, though; crying wasn't metal. He couldn't cry over it.

But he kept thinking of Skwisgaar; it was impossible not to. How Nathan had met him for the first time at an Agnostic Priest concert, which had incidentally been the last for that band. He remembered going to a Swedish bar afterwards and running into the members of Agnostic Priest, who were fighting with each other over who knew what. He remembered Skwisgaar screaming something at the band's frontman and then smashing a mug of beer over the guy's head. He remembered the other band members pointing at Skwisgaar and saying in unison (in Swedish, of course, which Skwisgaar had had to translate for Nathan after the fact), "You're fired, you asshole!"

He remembered, like it was only yesterday, how Skwisgaar had flipped the Agnostic Priest guys the bird and then turned his back on them. He had almost walked out of the bar before Nathan had stopped him. Nathan well remembered how the first words out of Skwisgaar's mouth to him had been in Swedish, and had gone something like, "Get your fucking hands off me, you ape!"

But Nathan, instead of punching the Swede's lights out like he ordinarily would have done, had asked the younger man to join their band. They needed another guitarist, he explained; at that time they had only had Nathan, Murderface, and Pickles (whose position in the band had been somewhat ambiguous, since he could play both drums and guitar, and wasn't sure which he'd be better at).

Skwisgaar, the ever proud, indomitable, arrogant Skwisgaar, had just stared down at him unblinking until Nathan had wondered whether the man could speak or even understand English. Finally, Skwisgaar had _"Pffted!"_ and said in his thick accent, "If you's little band not be sucking Slepnir's two cocks, maybes I join. Maybes. Yous think you can handle me, hmmm?"

And Nathan had said, "We're the most brutal metal band in the world, you dick. See if you can handle _us_."

Instead of punching Nathan or breaking something over his head, Skwisgaar had laughed, long and loud, and asked them where they were staying and practicing at. And the rest, as they say, had been history.

_Now it really is history,_ he thought. Skwisgaar was gone. Gone, and all he had left were the memories, and even those would fade someday, like photographs left for too long in the sun.

But there were so many of them; so many images of the past. He could still picture Skwisgaar at a Norwegian airport, standing tall and haughty, being approached by a starving, feverish Norwegian boy barely out of his teens, a boy that they would later come to know as Toki Wartooth. Nathan remembered how the kid had clung to Skwisgaar, calling him Sven and babbling in Norwegian, which Skwisgaar had pretended to not understand. He remembered how Skwisgaar had finally, reluctantly handed Toki his prized Gibson guitar, and how they had all watched in amazement as the half-dead youth had brought the instrument to life under his grimy, bony fingers.

He remembered how later Skwisgaar had nursed Toki back to health, though of course in such a covert way that no one could accuse him of actually _caring_ about the boy.

He remembered countless other things; Skwisgaar's unfortunate encounter with Nathan's own cilantro-laced barbecue sauce right before his TV show; his endless parade of fat, old women (so many that the other band members had long since given up teasing him about it); his obsession with practicing the guitar everywhere, even in the hot tub and in his sleep.

Ofdensen was at Nathan's side like a shadow. Nathan wished the man would just go away, but there was no shaking him off when the manager wanted something done. "Nathan," Ofdensen whispered, "you have to deliver the eulogy now."

"The what?" His voice didn't seem to be working properly.

"You need to say something before we light the funeral pyre."

"Oh. Yeah." He swallowed, hard. Even swallowing was difficult at the moment. "Yeah, fine." He cleared his throat, an act so painful that fresh tears sprung to his eyes, and he quickly wiped them away before anyone else noticed. He stepped up to the podium and adjusted the microphone, tapping it once to make sure it was on.

"Um, friends, employees, we are here today to mourn the passing of one of our own. Skwisgaar... Skwisgaar Skwigelf." Nathan forced himself to stop looking at Skwisgaar, took a deep breath, and then plunged blindly onward, because he knew that if he stopped speaking now he could never start again. "He was the world's fastest guitarist, and that was probably a combination of talent and the fact that he had a really piss-poor childhood, so what else did he have to do but practice, huh?" Nathan's eyes fell on Serveta Skwigelf, who was sitting in the front row, the row where the members of Dethklok also sat. She was weeping so hard that it was a wonder she could even draw breath, and because of that he decided to not say anything specifically about her role in Skwisgaar's said piss-poor childhood.

"He didn't know who his own father was, but Skwisgaar always knew what he wanted to do," Nathan continued, "and that was rock, and rock hard. And that, Skwisgaar could do. He could do it better than any other guitarist around because that's _all_ he knew how to do, because that was the way he wanted it to be." He remembered when Skwisgaar had told him of the long nights of his adolescence, staying up until 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning, simply playing his guitar until his fingers bled and ached so fiercely that to even hold a pencil at school the next day was agonizing.

"And Skwisgaar rocked," Nathan continued, his voice taking on a fiercer edge. "He gave it his all, every day, every practice session, every concert, and I'm proud to say that our last performance... was our best one ever. And no one can take that away from him, ever."

Ofdensen lit a torch and handed it to Nathan. The heat of the flames made his skin feel tight and dry. His eyes ached and burned.

He held the torch aloft. "Skwisgaar Skwigelf, we release you from your earthly duties. Go to Valhalla with your head held high."

Serveta began to moan as if in mortal agony. "No, no! My son! Don't burn my son! Please...." She tried to stagger to her feet, but was too drunk or grief-stricken to stand up properly, and ended up crawling on her hands and knees towards the pyre. Both Toki and Pickles had to grab her and restrain her. She curled up in Pickles's arms, sobbing uncontrollably. "My little boy... my little boy is gone."

Nathan stared at her for a moment, then lowered the torch and stepped away from Skwisgaar's body.

The wood piled around him caught fire first, blazing up around Skwisgaar like a bed of flames. Then the fire reached his clothing and tongues of hungering orange licked over his body, sending up billows of greasy smoke that quickly became tinged with the scent of burning hair and flesh. Soon Skwisgaar was surrounded by fire and it hurt to even look at him. Even so, Nathan forced himself to sit down and watch every moment. He couldn't take his eyes off the sight of his band's guitarist, his friend, burning.

Everyone backed off until the pyre burnt down to black ashes of charred wood and bone. When the remains were cool enough to touch, Nathan came forward and took up the largest bones and wrapped them in a black cloth. They would be interred later.

For now, he just needed to go somewhere and get so drunk that he couldn't even remember this day. But even that, he realized as he slogged back to his room, would be a loss. And right now he couldn't stand to lose anything more of Skwisgaar than he already had.

And the knowledge that he would be stuck with this memory -- of speaking for his dead friend when his throat had felt like he had swallowed broken glass, of lowering the torch that burnt Skwisgaar's body to greasy black ash, of picking up Skwisgaar's charred thigh bones and ribs and skull and wrapping them up carefully and handing them over to Charles and the cryptkeepers of Mordhaus -- that was the cruelest knowledge of all.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

_Several weeks later...._

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

It hurt to see him like this.

Nathan was depressed, and everyone knew it. The infuriating thing was that he would never admit to it; never say that he was in pain, never even say how he felt. He had never wept in front of her. Whatever he felt about Skwisgaar dying was a part of his inner life that he did not show to her, and that made her feel alone, unappreciated, unneeded. And Angélique liked being wanted and, on some level, needed. She felt as though she could be vulnerable in front of him; why couldn't he do the same with her?

At times she felt like she was his mother or his caretaker, not his lover. He didn't make love to her anymore; they slept in the same bed, but Nathan would always roll over on his side and stare at the wall, not sleeping for hours and hours into the night. He hardly ate. His body reeked because he didn't shower and didn't shave for days at a time. She had to remind him to drink some water every day and change his clothes once in a while.

The only thing he liked to do now was drink alcohol, and that he did constantly. It was practically the only fluid he would intake willingly; it was, Angélique often thought bitterly, the only thing that was keeping him alive, but it was also killing him at the same time. He vomited blood quite often; the carpet and walls were stained from it, from when he had been so drunk that he couldn't move to the bathroom fast enough and had simply puked where he lay. Angélique always cleaned it up herself, cleaned _him_ up, got him into bed, and said nothing about it afterwards. He never acknowledged it, nor did he thank her for her help. It was as if him puking his guts up had never even happened, and maybe in his mind, it hadn't. But she remembered, of course.

Angélique felt as if the pressure of the situation was building in her like steam in a kettle. At work, her hands shook and her mouth felt dry and bitter. She felt angry and afraid -- two emotions she was intimately familiar with already -- but also sad. Sad for Nathan, sad for the inevitable destruction of Dethklok, sad for the loss of a man that she hadn't really known. But she didn't know how to express these feelings to Nathan and wasn't even sure if she should try. Angélique knew she was not a brave or bold person; she wasn't the type to poke her head up out of the crowd and say whatever she felt and thought, consequences be damned. The bravest things she had ever done were to leave Grishnack and sleep with Nathan, and even those choices had been first initiated by Nathan in some way or another. But at the same time she also knew she had to do something or she would go insane. Or she would leave Mordland, or she would give up on her life with Nathan, and that was the worst thought of all.

_Be brave,_ she reminded herself. _You've gotten this far, you've survived everything else, and you love him. Be brave._ At times she would take out the pass-card he had given her and turn it over in her hands like a worry-stone, thinking about the _Blood Ocean_ premiere, where she had left Grishnack behind for good, thinking about the first night and morning she'd spent on the Dethcopter back to Mordhaus, the first time she'd seen her new home, the first time she'd made love with Nathan. Doing all of that had taken some amount of courage that she hadn't really realized she'd possessed at the time.

Finally one night, she summoned up whatever was left of her internal reserves of bravery and approached Nathan in the bedroom they shared together. He was, amazingly, not drunk, but was instead painfully, somberly sober, sitting on the bed and staring out the open window at the night skyline of the Mordhaus. Lights winked and flickered in the night; landing strip lights, windows, lights on the turrets for the evening guard. Nathan stared at it all, unblinking. It was almost as if he was frozen.

As she approached him, she saw that he was looking out at the nighttime world through a sheen of tears. They hadn't fallen yet, might never fall while she was in the room with him, but they were there.

"Nathan?" she said softly.

He didn't look up. "What." It wasn't a question. It wasn't angry. It wasn't curious. He sounded as though he had no interest in her at all.

She sat down beside him, and it took all her courage to do that. She had no idea as to how he would react to anything more because she had never seen him like this before.

She studied his profile for a while. He sat there, very still, and ignored her, or perhaps was so lost in his own thoughts that he had actually forgotten she was there. He looked older. The grey streak in his hair now seemed very prominent to her, though in truth it really hadn't gotten any larger. His body was skinnier because of his almost total lack of food over the past several weeks; he had definitely begun to lose his muscle tone, and even his familiar paunch had a pouchy, sagging look to it. His rawboned face looked thin and drawn; his cheekbones stood in sharp, pinched relief, and there were dark, baggy circles under his sunken and bloodshot eyes. Angélique noted that she would either have to comb or cut his hair for him because it was snarled and tangled. Several days' worth of salt-and-pepper stubble was growing wild over his chin, jaws, and throat. She would have to shave it for him in the morning, she supposed.

The silence stretched out between them, and she found that she didn't really know what to say. "Tell me how you're feeling, Nathan" wouldn't work. Neither would "What are you thinking about, Nathan?" That sounded trite and stupid even to her, and besides, he was a guy. He didn't think that way.

So she settled for very slowly leaning towards him. He seemed somewhat aware of her increasing proximity but didn't pull away. That reassured her. She rested the side of her face against his shoulder and breathed in the rank smell of his sweat and the two-day-old bile stain on his t-shirt. He still didn't pull away. She put an arm around his back and he didn't shrug it off.

"I love you, Nathan."

He sighed deeply at the whispered confession and began to relax. It didn't feel to Angélique as though he was giving up his depression of the past several weeks (nothing she would say could make Nathan Explosion give up anything if he didn't want to give it up), but was so tired and beaten that his body was finally, physically forcing him to relax -- or rather, collapse. He slumped over against her and slid bonelessly down her front, finally resting his head against her thighs and lap. Out of a wild tangle of hair, a single green eye squinted up at her. It was bright and watery and reluctantly trusting. Very reluctantly trusting. But trusting nonetheless.

"Yeah." Was all he said. After a while he finally added, "I know."

He closed his eyes and fell asleep almost immediately with a very weary and actually rather grateful sigh. As he began to snore in earnest, Angélique realized that this was the first time in weeks that she'd actually known him to sleep. She supposed that he felt relatively safe with her, and that, in and of itself, was a compliment.

She stroked his hair and listened to him snore. After a while, she lay back and fell asleep herself, her hand resting on his shoulder.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Nathan might have finally been getting some sleep, but Pickles, sitting alone in his bedroom, was not.

Sleep was a rare thing for him, nowadays. Even heavy drinking couldn't send him into the blessed oblivion of intoxicated stupor. All he could think about was that it had been his drugs -- his cocaine, namely -- that had killed Skwsigaar.

How had Skwisgaar gotten it from his bedroom? _When?_ He could have taken it before the concert or after it. Either way, Pickles had either been practicing too much to notice Skwisgaar sneaking around, or he'd been too drunk to notice the same. Either way, it had ended up with Skwisgaar's death, and the guilt was too much for him to bear.

Oh, he'd considered suicide, but ultimately rejected it. Suicide was for... well, it was for people like Murderface, he'd always thought, and Pickles didn't want to inconvenience the people around him any more than one traumatizing death already had.

Perhaps it was better, he reasoned that night, if he just left. He couldn't stand how damn quiet Mordhaus had gotten, anyway; it was like a friggin' tomb. Appropriate enough, seeing how Dethklok had just been buried.

A knock on his door. Pickles sighed. "Yeah, who's there?"

"It'sch me, Picklesch. Lemme in."

Pickles flopped back on his bed, utterly spent and feeling sickened. "Yeah, c'm'on in."

The door squeaked open and Murderface slouched in. He was unsteady on his feet and even from where he stood Pickles could smell the alcohol on his breath.

"Ye're drunk, William."

Murderface blinked at him with glum offense. "Scho're you." He clung to the doorknob and swayed back and forth. "C'n I... c'n I schit down?"

"Yeah, c'm'on in. Have a seat." Pickles patted the bedcovers beside him and Murderface staggered in and slumped down. There was silence for a while.

Finally Murderface mumbled, "Y'called me _William_, Picklesch. N'body callsch me that, unlessch they're my grandma or Nathan and they're tryin' t' irritate me."

"Oh, sorry." _If he throws a fuckin' temper tantrum about whatever the hell I called him, I'm rollin' him off the bed and out the door,_ Pickles thought sourly.

But what Murderface said next surprised him. The bassist only sighed heavily and said, "Naw, it'sch okay. I'm not mad. I juscht... I dunno what we're gonna do, Picklesch. Nathan'sch been--"

"Depressed," Pickles finished.

"Yeah, an' we've gotta release one more album, that's in our contract, y'know. One more album after thisch new one, and we can't tour to schupport it...." Murderface shook his head. "I dunno what we're gonna do, Picklesch."

"Nathan's been puttin' together a Greatest Hits collection. That'll fulfill th' contract," Pickles offered.

"Greatescht Hits CDs are lame."

"Yeah, but he's puttin' some old stuff on there. Stuff that got cut or never released or... I dunno. He spends all his time down in the engineering studio, mixin' and drinkin'. I've been helpin' where I can... I dunno what else we can do, though." By this, he meant that he didn't know what _he_ was going to do. The guilt over Skwisgaar's death was smothering him. He couldn't play the drums and he couldn't play the guitar. Nathan had wanted to finish some of the incomplete tracks with Pickles doing guitar with Toki, but Pickles had kept declining him until Nathan had finally stopped asking. He couldn't play as good as Skwisgaar; everyone knew that, most of all Pickles himself.

"Picklesch?"

"Yeah, William?"

"I'm schared. Fuck, I'm _terrified._ I hate to admit that, I feel like schlittin' my own fuckin' throat, but I am. What the fuck just happened to usch?"

Pickles sighed softly. He would need to get drunk after this; get so drunk that he would pass out and fall into whatever excuse for sleep that might offer him. "We died, Murderface. We died, right along with Skwisgaar. An' now we're just waitin' t' be buried with him."

Murderface sat up. "Well, if that'sch the way it'sch gonna be, I'm goin' out with a bang. Blood 'n' fire, Picklesch. Blood 'n' fuckin' fire."

Pickles smelled Skwisgaar's burning flesh again in his memory, and nearly threw up. "You do what you need to do." Murderface was gone, he realized; as dead as Skwisgaar was, in his own way. Nothing was going to stay him from his course of destruction; in a day, a week, a month, a year, it was coming. Nathan wasn't being much of a help at stopping this course of dissolution, at any rate. _Neither are you, you douchebag. Fuckin' useless asshole, is what you are, just like Ma and Pa are always sayin'. Hell, I can't even compare with Seth. Fuckin' ex-con Seth._ He choked out a raw laugh; there was no humor in it. It was the laugh of a man staggering into his own grave, a grave he'd just finished digging.

Murderface, oblivious to Pickles's mindset, stared down at him with a curiously transformed expression, his green eyes pallid and burning with a crazed energy. "How're you gonna go out, Picklesch?" He actually sounded genuinely interested, as if this was some fun activity they could plan together.

"Nothin'. I dunno. Just... go the fuck 'way if you're gonna go all morbid and shit on me."

Pickles would realize later, in the light of a new day, that that had been the wrong thing to say, and the memory would only be more salt in his wounds. Any hope of reaching Murderface was lost in that moment.

Murderface sneered. "Fuck you, then. I might be a pusschy for admittin' I was terrified, but I've got ballsch. I'm not schared anymore. You wait and schee, Picklesch. The world will remember me. You juscht make damn schure it'll remember you." He lurched to his feet and staggered out the door and slammed it behind him, leaving Pickles in the darkness of his room, alone with his own thoughts.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

The next morning, Angelique bathed Nathan, shaved him, and combed his hair for him. Nathan had to look relatively smart and neat for his first press meeting after Skwisgaar's death.

Fans were rioting and committing mass suicide all around the world. Robbings, lootings, car jackings, random acts of senseless chaos -- all were rampant wherever Dethklok fans mourned the loss of the world's fastest guitarist. Music stores seemed to be a favorite target of arsonists, for some reason.

Nathan wanted to stay inside his bedroom and ignore it all, because he didn't feel like he could deal with it, but both Angelique and Ofdensen had urged him earlier to speak to the fans and attempt to quell the violence and destruction. Nathan really didn't care either way. Let 'em all die, the useless fuckers. Did they really think that random acts of pointless violence would get them to be noticed or cared for by Dethklok? What did they know about what he or any of the other band members were going through? They had never known Skwisgaar personally. He felt offended by them and their grotesquely flamboyant shows of devotion and grief. They had no right to pretend to mourn someone who hadn't been theirs to lose in the first place.

But finally Angelique convinced him to go to the press conference. "Please, Nathan, you need to end this. Let the fans remember you for the good time they had at your last concert, not for all this destruction."

He wanted to tell her that Dethklok had been built on destruction and that this was only a morbidly appropriate send-off, but she was a woman and would not understand. Her mind was different from his, in that respect. So he decided to do as she'd asked, thinking of his words to the concert-goers after _Cockblocker Killfest_ had been played live: _"I hope that the future of metal was conceived here tonight, engendered by your gory loins, nestled now in your dark and brutal wombs, and when your kids ask you how they were conceived, tell them it was at a Dethklok concert, where you heard the most metal love song, of all fuckin' time!"_ He -- and they -- had to live up to those words. Something of the metalhead world had to survive after Dethklok's passing, after all. Something had to be passed on to the next generation.

The press meeting contained several highly respected reporters from major magazines and networks, as well as prominent Dethklok fans who ran the major fansites on the Internet. Nathan squinted at all of them, blinded as always by the glare of the cameras and lights. Everyone was quiet and waiting for him to speak.

He cleared his throat.

"Fans of Dethklok," he began, "I know you've mourned Skwisgaar's passing... as have... y'know, us, the band. But I'm asking you, as the leader of Dethklok, as the lead singer of the most brutal band of all time, to immediately stop killing yourselves, and to stop burning and rioting and looting the whole fuckin' world, you know? Just...." He breathed hard, staring out at them and hating them all, hating the stupid, sheep-like expression on the Dethklok fans' faces as they recorded his words into their cellphones and uploaded him live to the Internet.

"Just fuckin' stop it, you pussies," he snarled, "and buy the damn album if you want to remember Skwisgaar! Don't you remember what I said about the future of metal being engendered in your dark and brutal wombs the night we played _Cockblocker Killfest_? Well, what the fuck do you want to happen to your kids, you stupid, selfish jack-offs? Do you want them to not even know their fathers, like Skwisgaar? It made him fuckin' miserable, you dicks! You selfish, arrogant bastards, thinking we'll notice and applaud and say how fuckin' _brutal_ you are if you just kill enough of yourselves or burn enough guitar and CD stores!" He stabbed a finger at the assorted cameras, the gaping faces. "Just sit down and _shut the fuck up._ You didn't know Skwisgaar and you have no fucking right to pretend that you did. So stop it."

He threw down the mic and stormed out of his last-ever press conference.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Dawn came cold and smoky to the mountain village. Rebecca sat outside her hut and watched the sun come up, as was her ritual. In her hands, she held a mug of hot soup, fresh from the microwave.

She felt content. More than that; complete. She had done what she had set out to do. She had vied against the dragon that was Dethklok, and had soundly defeated it.

Behind her, she heard footsteps; a man's boots treading on hard, gravelly stone. She didn't bother turning around. She had been expecting this for a while, now.

What did it matter if the dragon's teeth and jaws still had venom left to sting her with, or the reflex left to bite? It was still as good as dead. She did not mind giving up her life for what she had desired above all else.

Behind her, she heard sharp, angry breathing, then the sound of a clip being loaded into a handgun.

It didn't matter. She would die with a smile on her lips.

"Charles," she said as calmly as if he was an old friend that she'd invited over to have soup with.

He said nothing, but his breathing sped up a little. She felt the cold muzzle of the gun tap the back of her skull and dig into the flesh.

There was silence between them for a while, broken only by the cry of a hawk. Rebecca followed its flight as it flew through the golden morning sky. _How pretty._ She wanted to laugh. _When I was a little girl, I never thought about where or how I would end up... only where I wanted to go. I would never have said, "Mommy, when I grow up I want to seduce one of the richest men in the world, fall down four flights of stairs, end up in a coma for several weeks, become horribly disfigured, kill the world's fastest guitarist, and finally die shot through the head on a nameless mountain outside of Mordland." Life is a strange beast. What a way to go._ Not that she regretted any of it, of course. To regret her own actions would be to admit to imperfection within herself, and Rebecca hated imperfection.

Finally Ofdensen spoke. "I know you murdered Skwisgaar. Why? Who put you up to it? How much did they pay you?"

"No one hired me. No one paid me. I took my revenge, Charles. And now you're going to do the same. Well, all you can do is kill me, so go ahead. But know this: I'm the woman who killed Dethklok. Tell dear Tonto that for me."

"I deeply, sincerely regret," he said very softly, "that I didn't smother you in your sleep, back in the hospital. Nathan was better to you than you ever deserved. You're a viper." The gun dug harder into the back of her scalp, forcing her head down. "This isn't an execution of a human being, Rebecca. You're not human. This is what should have been done long ago; stamping on the skull of a poisonous viper that slithered into my family's home."

Suddenly the gun was gone. She only had a moment to wonder about that before the pistol came back down, hard. She screamed out into the sky and nothing answered her but the echo of her own cry.

Ofdensen was strong and fast. Within seconds, he had hit her several times, each blow driven by a fury that had matched the intensity of her own hatred for Nathan. He struck her head again and again, and when his fourth blow spun her around and twisted her onto her back, he struck her face, again and again, breaking her nose, her cheekbones, and what was left of her teeth. The pain was overwhelming. She stared up at his livid face through thick rivulets of blood. Beads of red clung to her eyelashes and dripped into her eyes.

She opened her mouth, whether to breath or to speak, even she wasn't sure, but one of his blows had shattered her jaw, and the pain was so excruciating that she just let her mouth loll open.

"Die." He leveled the dripping handgun and placed the muzzle right between her eyes.

Rebecca had thought that she would hear the shot that ended her life, but she did not. There was only silence; a silence that was endless.

(/)(/)

(/)(/)

Charles Ofdensen stared down at the body of the woman who'd once been an internationally renowned tennis star, model, actress, and celebrity girlfriend of Nathan Explosion. Now she was nothing. Just meat for the carrion scavengers of the wild. He would not allow her the dignity of a funeral.

He kicked the body savagely, then pushed it over the cliff. He heard it tumble down, hitting some rocks and foliage on the way, then there was the distant sound of it finally landing in some lonely, rocky place somewhere far below him, splattering open like an overripe piece of fruit.

_Let the animals enjoy her now,_ he thought. He walked off a ways and threw the gun away, down the cliffside. He wouldn't be needing it again.

He stared out at the horizon and considered killing himself as well. He deserved it. By all the civilized codes of honor that he knew of, he should end his life. He had failed abysmally in his mission, failed in his duties, failed to protect Dethklok. And at the moment it seemed as though the only thing that could wash away the stain of that failure was his own blood.

But then he looked out to where Mordhaus lay and thought of the rest of them. Nathan, Murderface, Toki, Pickles... even young Angélique. They still needed him. Even though Dethklok had, in a sense, died along with Skwisgaar, the rest of what had been the band still needed Charles Ofdensen's protection and guidance for as long as he was able to give it.

"For you, then," he said, and turned and walked away, down the mountainside, back to the Mordhaus.

(/)(/)

_**The End.**_

(/)(/)

_**Author's Notes:**_ I have two fics following this. One of 'em, "...And Dream of Kittens, Please", is really light and fluffy and sweet and G-rated (no, seriously). I figured it would be a good thing to have something actually, y'know, happy after all this doom and destruction. And the next, "Our Town", is sad but bittersweet. It does have something of a happy ending, or at least a resolution.

Look for them...soon. Thank you so much for reading, commenting, and critiquing!


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